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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIli 



THE BOOK OF SELF 












ASPHALT 

By Orrick Johns 

MUSHROOMS 

By Alfred Kreymborg 

THE BOOK OF SELF 
By James Oppenheim 

THE COLLECTED POEMS 
of William H. Davies 

OTHERS (1916) 

An Anthology of the New 
Verse 











THE BOOK OF SELF 

By JAMES OPPENHEIM 




New York ALFRED A. KNOPF Mcmxvii 



COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY 
ALFRED A. KNOPF 






Tt^, 



^n 



PRINTED TM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



m 12 1917 
©CIA460743 



THE BOOK OF SELF 

THE Twentieth Century may be known later as 
a great religious epoch. The Nineteenth Cen- 
tury is now seen as a period of gestation, stormy with 
a passionate unbelief and tragic with its gropings. 
The creeds of the world, riding the previous eras on 
diverse currents, were all shipwrecked on the rocks 
of Science. They went down before the Machine 
and the Laboratory. 

For suddenly the body of man, hitherto only strong 
in destruction, became massive with creative power. 
Man's body is just as large as his tools, for a tool is 
merely an extension of muscle and bone: a wheel is 
a swifter foot, a derrick a greater hand. So, as it 
were, overnight, in the early part of the century, the 
race found itself with a new gigantic body. It was 
as if all the Past — a truly great and wise Mother — 
had given birth to this huge babe. And through this 
birth the race had to suffer that humiliation and help- 
lessness which is the fate of life new-born. 

That the mother continue in the child, the child 
must first crawl in the dust, must for a while be all 

5 



THE BOOK OF SELF 

body, must have its epoch without a soul. Such was 
the Nineteenth Century: the race crawling in the dust 
of industrialism, suffering itself to examine again the 
facts of life, Science humbly piecing together atom 
with atom: an epoch all body: but a new body. A 
glance at Pittsburgh, at the New York skyline, at a 
mammoth ocean ship, reveals the outline of new 
man. . . . 

The growth of Old Man was a growth through 
intuition and accidental experience: Wisdom came 
subjectively and was clouded with dream and myth: 
the genius of the race was greater in what it was, than 
in its knowledge. But the growth of New Man is 
also a growth through conscious vision and experi- 
mental experience: it is a growth through Science. 
The flashlight of intuition is supplemented by the 
searchlight of intellect. And so Science which began 
humbly with the chemical facts now turns again to 
the ancient task, takes up the burden again, resumes the 
labour of Old Man, by turning its steady and probing 
light on the psyche, the vast subjective realm. 

From the outside it finds what M'^as once found from 
the inside. It does not destroy the old intuitions, but 
fulfils them beyond their own power: and by analysing 
and breaking up the supernatural it raises the natural 
into new meanings. By lowering heaven it raises 
earth: and so the eyes of man, already taken from 

6 



THE BOOK OF SELF 

Beyond-Earth by the humble tasks of a century of 
materialism, sees now in Earth all and more than the 
ancients saw in the thin air of the supernal. Man 
was never wrong in the revelations of intuition: the 
error came in his interpretations, which were subjective 
wholly, the wishes of his heart. By correcting these, 
Science lifts up man himself to a new place in the 
world. 

Psychology is the name of that science which has 
the inner life for its kingdom: and it is through 
analytic psychology that the surface of the modern 
is again connected with the ancient roots. 

This little book owes its best to that science, es- 
pecially as it is developed by Dr. Carl Jung in Zurich 
and Dr. Beatrice M. Hinkle in New York. To the 
latter is due even a certain sort of phrasing. Never- 
theless the responsibility for the book is wholly mine, 
and none of its shortcomings may be laid against any 
one but myself. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Self 9 

The Song of Life 61 

Creation, A Drama 143 



iz 



SELF 



WHILE still young, 
And after years of striving for goodness, 
I found myself a lie. 

The self I had built up for the world 

Did not wear well . . . 

And another self, a self I hated to think of, 

Would come slashing through the mask with the blade 

of a rapier 
Or tongue of smoky flame . . . 
Yet, even so, there was relief in these bursts: 
I was less smothered inside. 

Then finally the artificial self 

Broke down . . . 

And I feared I was settling back to be a mere animal, 

A gorger on food, and the beer-joys, and flesh . . . 

But a man is more than a beast, yes, by millions of 

years of struggle, 
And when he acts the animal 
He becomes merely a poisoned man, 
A horror: 

II 



SELF 

And all the human in him revolts, and battles . . . 
And he is torn between two antagonists. 

So longing for greatness, 
I sought Wisdom . . . 

Wisdom bid me confess the worst in myself: 
To speak honestly of every motive, 
To make the hidden apparent. 
To call from the deeps of Self the secret demons. 
For, said Wisdom, 

Ignoring what you are led to a height of lies, 
And then to a depth of horror: 
But he who accepts himself. 
Even piece by piece, probing into every darkness. 
Thus comes to the bottom of rocks on which he may 
build. 

On such foundations of flesh greatness is raised . . . 

So boldly, and in the hurt of seeing my own self> 
And letting the worst be dragged from secrecy, 
I told, and I tell all. ... 

It is a picture disturbing to contemplate: 
With only one comfort for me . . . 
Any other man, or any woman, 

12 



SELF 

Equally candid about himself, 

Would present the very image of my soul. 

He who bares self, bares humanity. 



13 



OELF'S the monster all-mouth, 
^ And all gorilla-arms . . . 

Give it to me, me . . . 
I J I want it . . . 

What cries from the dust so, 

What toad-atom puffs itself up to bursting? 

It happens to be I : 

I, an am.iable, smiling, modest-mannered man . . . 

I am so impatient after power and fame I'd like to 

squeeze Earth in my hand till it cried out . . . 
I want to have my way: override others: be known, 

acclaimed . . . 
And it's on my tongue's tip to say that I surpass 

Shakespeare or Napoleon or Mahomet . . . 

So great this egoism and greed 
That I speak humbly, rarely mention myself. 
And every time a work of mine fails I sink into abysses 
of self-contempt. 

14 



IT 



1ASK your honest opinion: 
But beware of giving it to me . . . 
Self is swift to turn against the assailant. 

Truly I will listen calmly, laugh casually, 

Tell you you are right ... 

But deeper 

I am merely like a raw wound, 

Hurt by a breath. 



15 



Ill 



IVE me first place, 

And let no other share with me what I desire to 
possess . . . 

This other is named a great poet, 
Or this man is smiled on by the woman I love . . . 
I grow black inside, 
A black tide, 

So to smother the tiger who else would tear with teeth 
the favoured one. 



i6 



In.-" ' ,i i | iii iii i mi ii w ii 



J 



IV 



Do you hear vexation in my voice? 
Yes, you kept me waiting ten minutes . . . 
Besides, I was served with stale cream for breakfast. 

I am raspy as a saw trying to cut through a knot, 
My temper is scratchy. 

But you see how sweet I am . . . 

That's because I dare not give way to my feeling . . . 

It would seem unbalanced. 



17 



V 



1AM bored insufferably by most people . . . 
They gag my mouth: I can't talk to them . . . 
Nothing I want to say belongs to them, 
And nothing I have to say belongs to me . . . 

Inside, I watch them and make caricatures, 
Donkey-faces and ass-faoes, snake-faces and pig- 
faces . . . 
And the more superior they seem 
The lower I put them ... 
Do I not thus raise up myself? 

Yet I endure them . . . 

I want to be known for kindness and good nature, 

An open, generous, lovable man. 



i8 



VI 



I USE many people as tools, 
Or try to . . . 
My attitude toward a man changes very quickly from 

contempt or negligence to attention 
If I happen to find out that he can lend me a hand 
To greater power. 

There are many ways to buy fame and thrones . . . 
Even politeness is a penny that purchases a little lift. 



19 



VII 



PITY? Yes, I am often soft with pity . . . 
It's an easy way of finding a substitute for myself 
And crying over him , . . 
It seems quite righteous to be sorry for him, 
To ease the hurt of self-pity 
Without telling myself it is I who gain my own tears. 



20 



VIII 

I WIN approbation for not compromising . . . 
And yet sometimes this means 
That I am too indolent to adapt myself to necessity, 
And without effort hold to my easiest way. 

It is much harder to get the picture painted inside the 

limits of the frame 
Than to splash it on at the size it happens to come. 



21 



IX 



ONCE I had a virtue called continence . . , 
But I here set it down frankly 
That I was afraid of women, 
All the tangles that might arise, 
The dangers of disease and pregnancy, 
The welter of emotion that might overwhelm me, 
The interruptions to my work . . . 

Base cowardice is the root, stem and even blossom 
Of many a flower of virtue, 
And many a fruit ... 

But the smell of such flowers has a flavour of decay, 
And such fruits are spotted with rot. 



22 



T 



X 



HE golden mean — 
Yes, I have practised the golden mean. 



There are many mysteries, miracles too, 
I haven't tested, I haven't experienced . . . 
Height and abyss are missed . . . 
But I went safe. 

It was all here for my taking, 

And I knew at the start that the great miss little, 

But are children of hell and stars, 

Made wise through extreme life . . . 

But I, I practised the golden mean 

And went unscathed . . . and childish . . . 



23 



I 



XI 

HAVE proudly gone about 
Telling people I am a sceptic 



What I hid from them 

Was that this scepticism 

Was my terrible doubt of myself. 

Who has ever built a faith on an inner quicksand, 
The shiftiness of his own evasions and lies and clever 

misleadings of others, 
And that quick dramatising of the trivial by vi^hich he 

sees himself a god? 

And w^ho lacking faith in self 
Can have faith in any other self? 

If the only part of the vi^orld I really taste and feel, 

The part that is I, 

Is fraudulent, a golden phantasy that turns tarnished 

at a breath of fact, 
How can I believe in the rest of the world? 
24 



XII 

ONE I loved deceived me, 
And I rose in glorious wrath . . . 
A wind of godliness possessed me . . . 
I became an avenging deity. 

What! deception in love? 

After this what harmony could be between us, 

And where the encircling trust? 

Yet, I was so amazed by my own storm. 

That I happened to glance at myself. 

And found that for some time I had been deceiving 

her . . . 
And the sin that I did not want for myself 
Because I hated it, I 

I fastened upon her, 

So that loosing my wrath against the sin 
I struck her, and saved myself. 



25 



J 



XIII 

1 PREACHED passionately 
That the meek shall inherit the earth, 
And that of the poor is the kingdom of heaven, 
And that the last shall be first, 
And that woe shall come to him who harms the least 
of these. 

For I was of the lowly, 

And I was poor. 

And I was the last, 

And I was of the least of these. 



26 



XIV 

ONCE I made a politicial creed out of justice to 
the downtrodden, 

And swore that I would rather consort with prosti- 
tutes and pimps, 

With the ignorant and the criminal, 

Outcast and the oppressed . . . 

Not knowing, of course, 

That I was moved, not by a love of Truth and of 
Justice, 

But by a love of self . . . 

For my self was low and belonged among the low, 

And I hid the fact 

By thinking I was one of the great and high 

Overflowing with brotherly love. 



27 



XV 



TJ ENUNCIATION was a word sweet to my 

-■■^ mouth ... 

So I renounced . . . 

I devoted myself to my family, 

Stayed home at night, gave up opportunities. 

Omitted many joys of art and friendship, 

Called on my relatives. 

And remained strictly cemented in my rut. 

It was hard to believe that this renunciation was self- 
indulgence: 

That I lacked the fighting strength to overcome in- 
dolence 

And the wrong demands of others, 

And fixed habits, 

Enough to break loose, and go out to the new, 

And meet the shocks and hurts of the stranger's world, 

And the risks and icy uncertainties of adventure. 



28 



XVI 

THERE is a forbidden self-love 
That has been mine, 
Rooted in childishness, m 

And in the impossibility 
Of devotion to another, 
And the forgetting of selfishness. 

It is easier to phantasy 

The perfect face of a woman, 

And to kiss her lips in dream, 

Than to grasp a real woman. 

With the struggle, pangs, effort and facts 

That keep the greatest love in touch with the dust, 

And the dust's sting. 



( 

29 



XVII 

THE sting of women, 
And the agony of beauty that stirs at sight of a 
sudden face, 
And the deep ache after gleaming bodies — 
That which with eyes numbs a man, waking desire — 
I know, and I have known. 
But known, too, as a darkness, 
As a hungry cruelty, 
A tyrannical oppression. 

Such are the slimiest and darkest monsters 
In the hiding of my heart. 

But women think me gentle 

And call me boy. 

He of the heaviest hand 

Learns, if he is sharp, the lightest touch. 



30 



.J 



A 



XVIII 
TOM and Sky contend together. 



Sky is silent: 

Atom is noisy with words. 

Says Atom: 

" I am God . . . 

I am the thinker, the creator, the lover . . 

The future of the heavens is in my hands." 

Atom has spoken: 

But Sky remains silent, 

And shall remain silent 

When many heavens have passed away. 

Even so, it is hard to think that I, 
So heaven-huge in phantasy, 
So god-like in imagination, 
Am Atom. 



31 



T 



XIX 

HEY speak of a hundred million suns, 
Many of them juggling half a dozen Earth- 
sized planets about themselves. 



Worlds are evidently cheap, 
And planets cheaper. 

Yet in the irretrievable depths of this universe 

An Atom that is a Self 

Makes w^ithin itself a great disturbance 

For it is guilty of an appetite huge as the world 

And vi^ants itself, and not even any other Atom, 

To throne the stars. 

Many huge-shouldered stars gazing down at that speck 

Would marvel at such insolence. 

If they were aware of it, 

But evidently they move on unaware. 



32 



PART II 



TTERE I am, then; 

-■-■■■ I have taken off these outer garments of Ethics 

and Appearance, 
And these undergarments of Self-Illusion, 
And now, last, I have torn from my face the great 

mask, 
The Human. 

Now I am down to what I am: 
The nakedest animal, the white beast: 
The tiny conscious engine of Earth whose dream and 
thinking are far beyond what he is . . . 

How shall I catch up with what I know? 
How reach level with my dream? 



35 



II 

WISDOM says: 
Put not thyself down, 
But raise Nature up. 

Why scorn the naked animal, 
Or spit upon the dusty Earth? 

The scientist sits in the laboratory 
And for ten years studies a fleck of mud; 
Vast futures hang on the meaning of that fleck: 
Perhaps the health of millions. 

The axis of Creation may be a Galaxy or a worm: 
And the body of a man is a swarm of fighting miracles. 

There is nothing low: 
Be wise! Accept! accept! 



36 



Ill 



I CAME down at last to the study of my body, 
And I found that there was nothing else to 
me . . . 



Now I had liked to think of myself as an aristocrat and 

a lord, 
And the dirty, sweating, fecund flesh my slave . . . 

Some day the slave should be sacrificed 
And the lord walk on high in a heaven where there 
was no eating of breakfasts . . . 

For in those days I was the Son of God, 
A little lower than the angels. 

Must I believe that I was only a little higher than 
the apes? 



37 



IV 



I FOUND this: 
The Past, a silent giant who has grown through 
ages unthinkable, 
A fierce liver, whether merely Earth, flaming, smok- 
ing, breeding and windy, 
Or beast hunting and mating, 
Or man swarming and conquering, 
Has put forth a hand for to-day's work; 
This hand is I. 

I think I choose what I want. 
But I only want what my body bids me want, 
And my body is merely the push and energy of the 
Past. 

I? I? 

Why, this I is only a servant of the nations and the 

continents and the Earth and the Sun, 
Creation's nigger. 



38 



SELF 

Think thus, feel thus, do thus, 

So says my owner, speaking in my blood 

And thus do I think, 

Thus do I feel. 

Thus do I do. 



39 



Go to, then: I will get the best of you, my 
body ... 
A slave masters his owner when he accepts and loves 

him: 
For then what he must do, he pleases to do: 
Isn't this freedom? 

Go to, I will turn and embrace you, body, 

And be one with you, 

And let you out to satisfy your hankerings . . . 

Come on, you troop of hungers. 
Open your mouths — and not vainly. 

I keep open house now, my guests are welcome . . . 
I bid you in, ambition and gluttony. 
And I accept you, you jealousies, envies, hates. 
Lead forth the dance, the naked dance, O phallic god 
of the autumn. 

I shan't hereafter let the tiger and the bull outdo me 
in being what I am. 

40 



VI 

ALL very well: but what now? 
Why this fight? 

I am a jungle of wild beasts all tearing each other: 
And I myself feel like a beast among men, 
And I am set against my fellows . . . 

The animals move with the lithe grace of a song that 

is seen : 
They are simple and organic. 

But I am torn into shreds of discord; 

What fights my visitors after I invite them in ? 

What pride and hard thinking refuses to accept them? 

When I tried to be a god, Earth struck me down, 
And now that I try to be Earth, is it a god that 
betrays me? 



41 



VII 



WISDOM laughs at me: 
And Wisdom says in my ear . 



Neither art thou god nor Earth, O dazed sufferer . . . 
Thou, thou art man . . . 

Didst thou think thou acceptest thy Past? 

Dolt, thou hast left out somewhat near a million 

years . . . 
Thou skippest lightly back over a dozen epochs 
And landest in the jungle . . . 

Wisdom, Wisdom, what have I skipped? 

And thus answers Wisdom: 

Man's struggle for a million years, 

By which he is Man, and neither beast nor god . . . 

Now go, foolish one, and accept thy human past. 



42 



VIII 

Now I go study my body again, 
And I see that it is not only flesh of animal 
desires, 
But also flesh of human desires. 



There is an intellect, that needs using, 
And a craving for wisdom, 
And a need of art. 

And that longing for surpassing oneself, we have 
named love. 

How shall I have my whole body. 
And make its many jangling chords into one sure 
song? 

How shall I make the rude gods, Belly and Phallus, 
Do team-work with their intangible fellows of the 
soul? 



43 



IX 



THIS is the story of food: 
The animal eats his food as he breathes the air, 
But man touches his eating with festival and fellow- 
ship. 

We sit around the table, 

And have many beautiful implements, goblets and 

painted plates, 
A jar of early roses stands on the snowy cloth: 
And now comes the ordered ritual of the dishes. 

Woven with the tongue's joy is the joy of speech, 
Banter, and trivial news, and high discussion. 
And the ease of folk who are busy together, 
And so commune together . . . 

So food is touched with art, 
And so eating is made human. 



44 






T 



X 



HIS is the story of mating: 
One animal mounts the other and the seed is 
planted . . . 



But the lover, in the intimate still dark, 

Caresses the beloved, and joins his lips to hers, 

And they make songs of a few words, many times 
repeated ; 

Level after level they rise in flight, caught in each 
other's arms, 

And not until spirits are aglow and high with har- 
monies beyond the day. 

Are they one flesh, and more than flesh: 

A music of thought and passion ... 

So mating Is touched with art : 
And so mating is made human. 



45 



XI 

AH, this is what Wisdom told me: 
Lower not thyself, 
But raise up Nature. 

All very well: 

But how shall I raise up jealousy. 

And how shall I lift to the heights, lust and ambition 

and anger, 
And how shall I make of mating, love? 

With what art can these crude shapes of Earth be 

transfigured ? 
For I see now they are forces. 

They are the winds, storms, hurricanes of my body, 
They are the wild strains of the fierce Past, 
Living in me, destroying me if I shut them down, 
And destroying others, if I let them go. 



46 



XII 



OI am raging with anger: 
I want to blast with destruction this man that 
I hate: 
My mind's eye sees myself slaying him with a blow 
and drinking his blood . . . 

Wisdom, Wisdom, if ever I needed you, it is now: 
I am as a leaf blown in this storm of temper . . . 
It rages : I am helpless before it. 



See, I must loose the lightning on him lest it burn 

me up: 
One or the other is doomed . . . 
I cannot live with this in me: 
He dies if I loose it. 



47 



XIII 

"PAUSE! cries Wisdom, with stern menace . . . 
•*- Thou sayest this is a storm, and so it is: 
A storm of power . . . 

Art thou not Man, the storm-harnesser ? 

Belongest not thou to the breed that hoops in the steam. 

Holds on a leash the sea, and makes lamp-light out 

of lightning? 
Art thou cunning against all save the storms in thine 

own breast? 

Turn: harness the great power: set it to work . . . 

Now is thy strong creative hour: 

Art thou a poet, and wouldst thou have the breath of 

fiery life in thy song? 
Sit thee down, and turn thine anger into music . . . 
This gives thy thoughts rhythm and flame . . . 
48 



SELF 

Art thou an architect? 

Channel off the fury in a vision of arches and spires; 

Give the storm vent in steel and stone. 

Take thy motive power when it comes to thee . . . 
With this feel what thou doest. 



49 



XIV 

FOOL, cries Wisdom, blast neither thine enemy 
nor thyself: 
But in place of killing, create. 

Is it not in this that man is more than Nature, 
That he turns destruction into creation? 
He builds where Nature blasts. 

It is even out of ambition, and greed, and hate, and 

envy, and lust. 
That Man, denied a rending with his teeth. 
And a ruining with his claws, 
Just to save himself has reared up civilisations . . . 

Harness thy passions: 

They are thy strength and thy might: 

Be Man, the creator. 



50 



XV 



MAN, the Creator! 
But why be man-the-anything ? 



Man's a dubious venture: 

A. split-off Question from the Unquestioning: 

He and Nature he knows as " I " and " It." 

This sundering: what has he gained by it? 

He has edged out on a spring-board over the abyss . . . 

I envy the spider: 

Her fat belly spins silk for scooping nets, so she may 

eat, 
And bags for her eggs, so she may procreate: 
Her life's a tiny river that runs smooth and without 

question 
Emptying into eggs: 
As a single drop of blood in my wrist throbs one with 

my heart 
So she with Nature. 

51 



SELF 

Has she a reason for living? 

No: but neither a reason for not-living. 

But I, I have a hundred reasons for hating life: 

For I hurl questions at its pains, failures, botches and 

funerals, 
And it gives no ansvi^ers . . . 

Or thus it answ^ers, my echo: 

Emptiness ! 
Nothingness ! 



52 



w 



XVI 

ISDOM laughs, 
And Wisdom says to me: 



Chaos! thou hast perhaps not wrought all thy jangling 
chords into one sure song? 

But what if thou wert a clear high music? 
What if thou camest to the bliss of the spiral, 
Never quite a circle of harmony 
But forever opening on further into the new circle? 

Spider-bliss is circle-bliss . . . 

She turns around one turn from egg to egg. 

A circle turns in on itself. 
But a spiral has yonder to go. 

Where art thou aimed ? 



53 



I 



XVII 
AIMED? At nothing . . 



I am fragments, and each fragment is a mouth, 

And I cram each gaper in turn: 

But what does the whole Man care? 

To eat when I hunger, 

To work in work-hours, and play in play-hours, 

And then to sleep . . . 

Hour after hour and day after day . . . 

Why? 

It is as if I had a hundred feet, 
Each going its own way . . . 
Thus, I, I go nowhere. 



54 



XVIII 



'TpHIS is the story of light: 



Earth's pelted across the skies with rays from 
the sun 
But only when the rays strike against an eye is light 

born: 
The sun shines only in the beholder . . . 

Is it so with Self? 

Is Self only Self when it touches another Self? 

Am I myself only through my neighbours? 

How shall I bring the song then out of discords 
Save as I focus my fragments against another ? 

And what is this centring and pouring and aiming of 

all that I am 
Away from myself to another self? 

This, whispers Wisdom, is love. 



55 



XIX 

THEN to turn destruction into creation 
Is not enough : 
But out of this turmoil a Self must be won: 
And he only wins Self who loses it — in another. 

Marchers into death for the love of God, 
Or the John Brown martyrs for a cause . . . 
They were the winners of Self. 

But my God is stuffed with straw: 
And I am shoved out from great causes by the scien- 
tists 
Who are thwarted and clouded by the hot amateur. 

Nor will I give my intellect opiates, 
And drugged, let go my heart . . . 
What then remains? 



56 



XX 

FOR Man, says Wisdom, there remains Woman, 
And for Woman, Man, 
And for both. Children. 

Dost thou truly crave a God's task? 

Then go, and aim and empty and attach thy Soul to 

reality : 
Lose Self in the living bodies about thee: 
A God's labour ... 

No bliss here of the dream : 

Woman is not Mother Mary but a web of fighting 

forces like thyself, 
And Love is a battle, ofttimes bloody . . . 

Dost take the challenge? 

Love thou a Woman, 

And perchance, through her then. Children. 



57 



XXI 

THEN, cries Wisdom, hast thou the spiral's 
course . . . 
Thy face is to the future . . . 
And thy many rivers meet in one delta of the sea . . . 

Thou livest beyond thyself. 

Yonder where thy many rays become one spot of light, 

And fused in harmony thy Self lifts up its face . . . 

Dost question life? 

Love does not question: 

Love lives: 

It ansv^^ers itself as music answers itself . . . 

It brings vision: 

It asks self-surpassing in thine own soul. 

For thou aimest to be a bestower, 

And it asks the emptying of self into thy children and 

thy works 
Who open up the future 
And the gods Beyond Man. 
58 



'VTOW, now at last I see: 



For Man has ever craved the greatest task, 
Even the God's task . . . 

Said Michelangelo : " I M^ould take the mountain and 

make a face of it." 
And said Wagner : " I would turn Earth into a sun 

whose rays are song." 
And Mahomet cried: "I have an inside mechanism 

for becoming God." 

I, too, have wanted to squeeze Creation into a handful, 
And out-power Alexander . . . 

And behold, here have I been given the greatest task 
of all . . . 

For I have been given the raw materials of a Self, 
And the pliant fingers of a consciousness for shaping 

the divine clay. 
And my task is to create a Self beyond Nature, yea, 

and beyond the Human. 



59 



SELF 

And I know the Self-Creator is the World-Creator: 
He snatches the heaven-sent chemic rays of planets 

and suns, 
And powerful currents of Earth, 
And the stored past in his own brain and body, 
And out of this colliding clashing Chaos 
Shapes a music and shapes a light . . . 

And in the divine struggle of this chaos-shaping 

He visions the future, 

He sees he is shaping Man by shaping one Man, 

And using this Self as a tool 

He shapes life about him, shapes Children, 

And now for him there is the Future, 

And the gods Beyond Man. 

We are creating through ourselves a, diviner progeny 
And a greater Earth, 

We are working toward the triumph of Man, 
And the humanhood of the People . . . 
Not blocks of marble and not rhythms of a poem. 
Not towers of granite temples nor Empires of rolling 

wealth. 
But divine artists who work in flesh 
Creating Selves and Souls. 



60 



THE SONG OF LIFE 



WHEN the youth left his Mother's house 
Morning was among the mountains 
And Spring, 
And even as the hills pressed against their breasts with 

arms of forest 
The little blue lake before that house, 
So the Mother encircled her son. 

The Father came, and then went, 

And the lad followed the man with a glance of hate. 

His Mother gave her son a bright sword: 
"Keep this, it is sharp with your Mother's love: 
Use it to slay the Dragon." 

" There are no Dragons in these days," said the youth. 

But the Mother smiled in sorrow: 
" There are, there are, my son . . . 
And when the dark hour comes 
Slay, though it slays you." 
63 



II 



THEN he said: 
" How can I bear to leave you? " 



She spoke with passion: 

" Where you are, my son, there am I : 

And where you go, I follow , . . 

And when you are in fear and need, as a child again, 

Turn even so much as an inch, and you will find your 

Mother, 
Her arms warm about you." 

They kissed good-bye: though he doubted her words. 

But as he started forth, not daring to look back, 
From the Mother sprang the image or ghost of the 

Mother, 
Like her even to the grey hair about her temples, 
And keeping pace with the youth, walked on behind 

him. 
And followed him to the woods. 
64 



Ill 



HE walked straight down the trail, looking back 
but once : 
He did not see the Mother so close behind him, 
But he saw the beloved woman in the doorway, 
And stumbled on blind with hot tears. 

And he thought: 

" I leave her with him : 

Would first that he would turn into a dragon 

That I might slay him, my hard father. 

And remain forever with her." 

His stumbling startled partridges: 

They drummed wildly up through hemlock twilight 

And flashed across a clearing of sun: 

He smelt strong pine and good Earth: 

He drank the wnld mountain-air . . . 

The blood of youth mounted and flushed his body . . . 

Sudden, the most ancient intoxication was his. 
Wildly beating against his longing for home, 
And restlessly he plunged ahead. 
65 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

"Would I stay," he thought, "would I stay? 
Or would I go clamorously against the world, 
A conqueror from the hills ? " 

The Image followed him, quickening her steps to his. 



66 



1 



IV 



THE road goes down from the mountains to the 
smoky valleys of men: 
It goes down a great slope along a precipice: 
And there beyond stretches the world. 

Down the road the youth came swinging radiantly, 
A hunter from the hills: 

He was good health among the healthy heights, 
He came toward the valley like good news. 

But he paused precipitately: 

For in the western skies hung a vision and a mirage: 

Hung as a cloud hangs, a golden city, 

With all her towers and domes and climbing roofs: 

A vision like gold sunrise, 

Like the dazzle when one looks into the sun . . . 

His heart failed . . . 

"I conquer that?" he asked . . . 

"Who am I, that this task is mine? 

My place is in the pine-sweet house of my Mother, 

And in the simple health of the mountains 

And the simple days." 

67 



V 



"DUT as he turned to go back, 

•■-' That Image turned not: 

And he thought he saw his Mother, 

She, standing very close to him in the sunlight, 

Sad, ah, so sad, with her dark experienced eyes 

And the lines about her mouth. 

He thrilled as he felt her arms about him, 
And remained so in comfort. 

But as he looked up, the golden city was gone: 

And he girded up his loins, 

And went on, the Mother following him. 



68 



VI 



Now there dwelt a wood-cutter in the midst of 
the lower forest: 
He dwelt alone with his daughter. 

The youth was wandering through the forest, and 

thirsted : 
It was near noon . . . 
He spied the wood-cutter's cabin, and came to the 

door. 

The house was empty, sweetened with pine-needle air, 
Shafts of dusty forest sunlight, and silence . . . 
Silence, save for a creek of the heights 
That roared white and icy down the rocky flume ... 

The youth searched about, drawing near to the waters, 
And came to some bushes, and peered through: 
And he forgot his Mother and himself, adoring the 
glory of this world. 



69 



VII 



FOR the wood-cutter's daughter was bathing in the 
stream : 
A young girl, dark, with hair like the raven's, 
And a slipping white body fresh from the waters and 

flashing 
As the sun ran down the wet : 

Over her head she held a towel with two arms out, 
And ecstatic with the cold creek, and with glowing 

drunken youth. 
She stood tiptoe, as if wings on her feet would toss 

her over the pine-tree tops . . . 

And lacking wings to lift her, she sang: 

Sang spontaneous snatches of a ringing wood-music : 

A hymn to Earth and life. 

Gone were Golden City and Mother for the lad : 

He panted suddenly with the pines and the passionate 

Earth: 
He was a boy of the sun, armed with the lance of 

fruitful fire: 
He grew dizzy, and blushed, a flame of desire: 
A flame to wrap the girl in. 

70 



VIII 

WHEN she came up, in a rude garment of green, 
Through the hang of which her white legs 
glanced and vanished, 
And her black hair about her back and shoulders, 
And one hand holding the green against her young 

breasts, 
She spied the youth, who waited trembling in her 
father's doorway. 

She stopped, as a doe stops, hearing the hunters: 
Startled, wide-eyed, with parting lips, 
And one knee over the other . . . 

Yet even in her fear she thought she saw a shadow 

upon him or behind him: 
But she did not see it was his Mother. 

Then he spoke, stammering, asking her pardon, 
And telling of his thirst. 



71 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

" Wait," she said, confused, " until I am dressed," 
And slipped by him into the cabin, 
And closed the door. 



72 



IX 



HE heard her singing softly as she clothed herself, 
And he knew that he had seen the naked Earth, 
For what is body of man but Earth stripped down 

to its essence. 
Its magical and miraculous core of vision and hands? 



And she, she knew she had gazed into the face of the 

sun. 
For what is the sun but the male of the Earth, 
Whose pointed fire impregnates the seed? 

But when she called him in, they dared not look at 

each other: 
He saw the rude table set with milk, and with bread 

and honey, 
And nuts of the wood. 

He sat and ate, and she tended him . . . 
And so the wood-cutter found them. 
Lad and girl in the shadow of the cabin, 
73 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

Graceful beyond mated tigers or mated antelopes. 
Oh, cup of sparkling wine, which, if they are wise, 
The elders put to their soul's lips, and drink: 
Youth, that keeps age young. 



74 



X 



HE abode in that place a fortnight: 
He helped the wood-cutter fell great oaks, 
Swinging lustily the axe. 

All that time his Mother hovered over him, 

But her image had grown wan and white and thin, 

Like a shadow against a second light. 

Sometimes the girl brought them their midday meal, 
But for love of each other, they dared not look at 
each other. 

Then at night, before the roaring logs in the hearth. 
They sat : she sang : he told tales out of his youth. 

Once the father slept, and as they said good-night, 
He dared to kiss her: 
Her lips were smooth as a pine-needle, 
Or smooth as a curved stem of the Indian-pipe: 
And her breath was the full rich breath and sweet 

75 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

Of meadow kine: 

Through the kiss, and the quick touch of her back, 
He felt her body as a gliding stem of wonder, so 
young, so sweet . . . 

But on his couch he laboured and panted: 

His joy ran into distress: the light darkened: 

He was in a pain that amazed him: 

A poison lurked in the wine, j 

A serpent coiled in the girl's heart. 



■^ 



4 



76 



XI 



SPRING was at her height: 
The red cardinal was building his nest, and sing- 
ing: 
The stags were battling for the does. 

There is in that forest a leafy covert, in shadow, with 

soft grass: 
Violets peer among the grasses: 
And the amorous wind, gone cool and hot. 
Is rich with herbage, and the damp rank Earth, 
And pungency of pines. 

A bed this, for lovers, 

In the season when Earth is a bridal bed, 

And many songs rise, and a dream wings tree to tree ; — 

Then in agony is ecstasy, and the wild, the golden 

energy 
Goes restless through all bodies of life: 
And there is desire to create, the longing for children. 

77 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

On this day, through sun and flying shadow of the 

forest, 
The young lovers went, nearly running, and with no 

words, 
Until they found the covert. 

There they stretched their fresh young bodies on the 

grasses. 
And panted secretly ... 

Thought was gone, and speech lost: 

They were caught in the inarticulate silence of nature: 

Which feels so deep it cannot speak. 



78 



XII 



INSECTS buzzed in the grasses, 
The bees hummed by with cargoes of wood-honey: 
Gazing up into the sky, they saw it as an infinite fire 

of blue. 
Changing the world to glory. 

For very pain he turned toward her, raised on his 

elbow, 
And his hand down her sloping side feasted upon her. 

Then she drew near, in pain, 

And the moment had come for them . . . 

But as he locked her in his arms, 

A black snake of horror reared hissing in his heart, 

And passion died . . . 

For in his arms lay his Mother, 
The hair grey over her temples. 
And the lines about her mouth, 
And sorrow of those much-experienced eyes. 

79 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

He arose, trembling, and turned from her: 
He knew that he was naked. 

Flaming swords drove him from that Eden, 

And not once looking back, he left her where she 

moaned and wept. 
And went forth to find the trail again, 
His Mother following. 



80 



XIII 

TTE thought to himself: 

■*--■■" I will go back to the house where I was born, 
Where all is simple and secure: 

And I will be a good son, and help my father at his 
hunting." 

Yet he tried again to think of the wood-cutter's daugh- 
ter: 
But he gave this up in horror. 
For whenever her image floated into his mind 
It took the visage of his Mother, 
And he shuddered at the passion that he felt: 
Shuddered, and put it from him. 

So, distraught, he found the trail, 

And he thought he saw his Mother in front of him. 

Beckoning him home . . . 

He followed, slowly ... 
8i 



B 



XIV 



UT when he came to the hill of the Vision of 
the Golden City, 



He paused: 

Pilgrims in grey were going in slow processional up 
the slope . . . 

It was grey twilight, and out of the hidden valley 
beyond 

The bells were beating solemnly. 

And peace was on the planet . . . 

Through the grey air the grey procession wan- 
dered . . . 

Then the leader, a simple religious man, 
With beard, and clear untroubled eyes. 
Turned to the youth and spoke to him . . . 

" Son, you are troubled ! " 

The lad felt suddenly that he could say all : 
This man was a sky of understanding . . . 

82 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

" All is vanity," he said, " and the world is foul : 
I am beset with life's perils." 

"Then," said the leader, "turn unto God: 
Put on a grey robe of forgetfulness 
And turn inward from the world . . . 
"^ He giveth his beloved, peace . . .' " 

Night poured her stars out into the gulf of grey, 

And all was still: 

He took the robe, and followed. 



83 



XV 



Now there was a place in the forest the Druids 
might have prayed in, 
August with highest pines: 
Here the forest turned in on itself 
And meditated in thick silence ... 
Here was sanctuary from the world, 
And the woods like a mother enfolded whoso came, 
And a man knew vastness by being closed vastly from 
it. 

The pilgrims halted here, and put down their burdens, 
And built a fire, and laid out a frugal supper. 

In the silence the leader rose, and pointed upward: 
Between the dusky treetops glinted the stars. 



84 



XVI 

AGAINST eyed Night they gazed. 
" O you stars," (so he prayed) 
" Who shepherds you, each in his path, across the 

eternal reaches? 
Who holds you up from the abyss? 
He shepherds us, each in his path, across the reaches 

of Earth; 
He holds up us from the abysses beneath us . . . 
O Father, that art in heaven. 
With open hearts we entreat thy love 
And surely thy love is for thy children. 
Who are very little, and they know not where they 

go, but their souls thirst, 
And they crave thy healing waters, O thou God." 

Then, in the fire-crackling silence, I 

Off from the youth's soul slid the load of the world. 
And through him went bliss deep and pure: 
Tears faltered down his face, 
He was at peace. 

85 




THE SONG OF LIFE 

" I have found God," he thought, , 

" To-night I shall sleep." 

He did not see his Mother's image grown large as the 

night 
Inlaid with stars. 



86 



XVII 

THEY went singing in the morning: 
" The pure shall conquer heaven ! 
Glory! glory! glory!" 

" Am I pure ? " the youth asked himself . . . 

His young body was fresh from the bath, 
Sap climbed in him: sunrise laughed: 
His soul danced . . . 

Then he remembered the girl bathing in the flume, 
And her outstretched arms, and opening singing mouth. 

His grey robe sat like steel on his naked shoulders, 
And chains bound his ankles. 

"What have I to do with these solemn ones?" he 

asked . . . 
" Are they swimmers, and runners, and wielders of 

the axe? 
I am cheated of my youth." 
87 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

In dark revolt he walked with the pilgrims along the 

climbing trail: 
But they went singing in the morning: 
" The pure shall conquer heaven ! 
Glory ! glory ! glory ! " 



88 



XVIII 

BUT at high noon they came to an ancient temple: 
Even their soft footsteps sent echoes among the 
marble pillars . . . 
Each chamber was a step rising toward the inmost 

sanctuary : 
And shadow deepened room to room . . . 

That temple stood white on an island: 

The river splashed among the reeds around it, 

The lizard basked on the rocks . . . 

In the outer court the white sunlight dazzled, 
But in the second court the light was mellow. 
And in the third it was golden-grey, 
And in the fourth it was like the light of a starry 
night. 

In the fifth they paused so that the eye might see. 
And in the innermost holy of holies they saw not for 

a great while, 
But were enfolded in the primal dark. 
89 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

Then, when they saw, 

They beheld a kindly image of God, the Father, 

Bearded, and wise of eyes, and with hand blessing. 

And the leader murmured: 

" This is the Silence of Silences, 

And we are in the song of this Silence: 

This is the Light in Darkness: 

And we are in that Light: 

This is the Peace that passeth understanding: 

Open, heart, be lifted, soul, give all, give all; 

Arise! shine! be glorified!" 



i 



90 



XIX 

IN the first court the youth felt a cool hand laid on 
his throbbing forehead: 
In the second his body eased and discord ceased, 
In the third a strange music began in his heart, 
In the fourth a longing filled him for ineffable mys- 
tery: 
In the fifth he panted with great thirst. 
And as he listened in the inmost shrine 
Earth passed away as a smoke in the heavens, 
And he stood in the Mystery. 

This wonder dwelt with him for seven days: 

His eyes gazed inwardly, and he saw and heard not: 

He was as one apart . . . 

And in this time he heard buried music, the song of 
the soul. 

As it flowed like a stream in the ocean : 

And strange glimpses came of old days, 

And he was a child crawling in the garden and con- 
sidering butterflies, 

91 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

Or at the window, in his mother's arms, he saw the 

full moon and said, " That is God," 
Or he smelt faint honeysuckle and warm milk, 
Or he dwelt a pigmy among giants, and one of these 
was his father. 

Then, many times, he seemed deep in water, 
And in many waters : 

And this was the sea sounding in his ears: 
This was the sea . . . 

So he moved like a memory for seven days. 
His Mother's image patiently tracing his steps. 



92 



XX 



ONE night he arose out of sleep, with a shout 
pounding at his sealed lips : 
And wildly he slipped from the camp, and ascended 

a high hill . . . 
The trees were swinging in the wind, and the clouds 
were driven across the heavens . . . 

And up on the hill's height he shouted : 

" Alone ! I am alone ! 

Lord ! they have dragged me down in the abyss ! " 

And a dark shape stood up against him . . . 

And he drew his sword to slay it . . . 

The same sword that his Mother had given him . . . 

But in agony he fell down on the damp Earth, 
Crushing the grasses, and gnashed his teeth, and 

moaned . . . 
It was the darkest hour. 

93 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

Then a wind seemed to lift him, lift him lightly as 

a dead leaf is lifted, 
And he arose like a wave, 
And looked upward, and behold, 
The heavens opened in gold before him. 

And it seemed as if a face shone in the centre of the 

gold, 
Even as the sun, 

But around it were wider and wider rings of suns. 
Even as a widening funnel from heaven to earth. 
And these rings of suns circled like angels singing: 
And the light was intolerable. 



94 



XXI 



TTE sang: " O flame, O life! 

■'--'■ O universe that is fire from end to end, 

And one fire opens into another. 

And I am a flame singing in the glory . . . 



" My revelation has come to me, and truth is upon 

me . . . 
I shall carry God to the ends of the Earth . . . 
Now^ I shall raise the multitudes w^ith news of heaven." 

And he went down to the sleepers, 

And they awoke and saw that he was one purified, 

And that he was love. 

And that morning he spoke the prayer before them. 
And he was the first among them to sing in the morn- 
ing: 
" The pure shall conquer heaven ! " 



95 



XXII 



HE repaired to the temple to make sacrifice: 
For he loved God so that he had to give to 
him . . . 



And he had but one thing to give that was precious 

to him, 
The sword of his Mother. 

" And this will I give," he said, " though the blood 
of my heart goes with it." 

He came to the image in the inmost shrine, 
And he loved the image . . . 

He knelt and prayed to it . . . 
" Father," he prayed, " thy love enfolds me, 
I am a child in thine arms: 
Thou art with me day and night, 
And where I go, thou followest, 
And when I need, thou art there . . . 

96 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

O for a sign, reach down, O Lord, 

Reach down and take thy child in thine arms." 

And he waited for the miracle. 



97 



XXIII 

THAT shape of God did reach down; 
And the youth felt great arms enfold him, 
And was caught to the heart of God ... 

But in his ecstasy he opened his eyes, 
And the silence sundered in a great cry: 
For he saw God face to face . . . 

And over the temples of God was grey hair, 
And around the mouth deep lines, 
And sadness was in the much-experienced eyes . . . 
And God was the beloved woman . . . 

He pushed away in a wild fear, keeping his sword, 
And fled far from that place. 

And he flung o£E his grey robe and ran naked : 
Even as one mad . . . 

And though he saw not the image of his Mother 
hastening behind him, 
98 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

And even as his shadow, 

He cried out: 

"Why do you pursue me forever? 

O monster-mother!" 

He had forgotten that she vs^as to be with him ever. 



99 



XXIV 

Now summer was rich on the land, 
And the fledglings were testing their wings for 
flight: 
The milk came thick with cream, and the flies swarmed 
about the lashing tail . . . 

It was a time of gardens, and sleep in hot noon. 
And mad throbbing nights ... 

Now the spider killed her mate and dined on him, 
Now in the jungle the hunters slew, 
Now there was war among men . . . 

And the youth, in the quick flush of a summer morn- 
ing, 
Came out upon great waters, smooth in the sun . . . 

And he saw canoes heavy with bronzed warriors, 
Their paddles dipped, rippled and flashed: the drip 

fell: 
They were moving toward the shore. 
lOO 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

And the promise of heat heated his blood, 
And he said: 

" I am a hunter from the hills : 

I came from my mother's house to battle and con- 
quer . . . 
I am still young." 

So he waited, exultant, for the coming of the fighters. 



lOI 



Xxv 

'TpHEIR chief greeted him . . . 

" Why does the stripling watch us, as idle as a girl? " 

He said: " I would go along with you." 

"Has the boy any fighting gear ? " asked the chief- 
tain. 
" My warriors have no arms for you." 

And the youth showed his sword, and the chieftain 
felt of it. 

" A true sword," said the chieftain, " but a sword for 
a man." 

" I shall grow a man, using it ! " cried the youth. 

The warriors smiled, but they accepted him . . . 

He bore his share of a canoe on his shoulder. 

And marched in the hot sun across the naked land . . . 

And as his shadow his Mother marched close to him 
in the sun. 

102 



T 



XXVI 

HEIR bivouac was on a hill, 
Under the far-off camp-tires of the stars. 



And they sang in mighty chorus all together 
A hymn before the battle: 

" We fight not for ourselves, Lord God of Hosts, 

But for the land that bore us: our fatherland: 
Whose soil is sacred with our fathers' ghosts, 
And there our dear homes stand. 

" Give us the battle. Lord of Sabaoth, 

And thou shalt have the last gasp of our breath: 
For the land that bore us, we are nothing loath 
To go down dark in death. 

" A people bow them to thee, Battle-Lord, 

Our wives and children send into our blows 
A passion that shall make our swords thy sword 
And scatter all our foes." 
103 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

When the youth heard this, 

A glad forgetfulness of self swept him; 

He was a man among men: 

He was but one of a host: 

And the great Cause, the Cause of a Nation and of 

a People and of a Land 
Caught him like fire and burned him up into the 

flames . . . 



104 



XXVII 

THEY swept like avengers and like destroyers 
Into the battle: 
And now the latter dream of the Earth, 
The dream of gods that love and build, 
Passed away from the bodies of men like fumes of 

wine, 
And left the naked white bodies as they were in the 
Age of Stone. 

The most terrible of animals were these men: 

Their fangs were lengthened into swords. 

And their claws into spears: 

They were as sure a thrust of the Earth as hurricane 

and waterspout: 
All was destroyed before them . . . 

And as they came on the foe, speech was forgotten, 

And all Gods blasted: 

The youth tasted the entrails of vision. 

With primal thirst for the blood of a man, 

And hunter's lust to kill. 

105 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

Screaming they closed upon each other: 

And he who was pierced, felt no wound, 

And he whose leg was loosed, crawled on the other. 

And the dead fell with cemented clutch on the victor, 

And all rolled together in red and whirling ruin. 



io6 



XXVIII 

/^UT of this insanity he came 
^^ Shaken and old . . . 

They built the camp-fires, they gathered about the 

flames, 
And trembling silence fell. 

They were very wearied of the battle: 

The longing for sleep was beyond the longing for 

life: 
They were as dead things moving about. 

He fell down, asleep, as a stone falls: 
And all was blank and void. 



107 



XXIX 



BUT in the morning they got them up, and fol- 
lowed the flying foe: 
And again each was as an eddy of wind in a cyclone. 



And they came to a village of the valley, and they 

sacked it . . . 
They sent up the ancient houses in flames and smoke, 
And they slew old women and old men. 
And drove the children before them: 
And all was insane vision and red madness . . . 

And the youth, with foam on his lips, went into a 

cottage door. 
And struck down a feeble cripple with his sword. 

He laughed over the writhing shape, 
And marked the last agony: 
A terrible joy was his. 



io8 



XXX 

THEN an old woman advanced clamouring upon 
him, 
And be lifted his sword against her, 
But his hand dropped. 

She had grey hair over the temples, 

She had lines about the mouth, 

There was anguish in those much-experienced eyes. 

And like a guilty black shape he crept away: 
And the sun was dark and cold in the summer sky : 
And the land was withered and old. 

He was a withered thing, and he was old: 
Stealing far out to the cool forest, 
And beyond the battle. 



109 



XXXI 

H 



E climbed to high places to escape himself; 
He was sick in body and in mind . . . 



And he stopped, and knelt, and washed his sword 

clean in a brook, 
And looking on the spring-water reddened with a 

man, he cried out: 
" Life is a horror and a madness : 
Into what cranny can I creep, where there is nothing? 
I fear death is not death: but more life." 

"Healing? where is it?" 

" Shall I go back to my Mother's house? 

Shall I bring her this ruined image of the youth that 

went from her? 
Shall I repay her in base coin? 
Or shall I take this sword and plunge it into my 

breast?" 

no 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

He sank down moaning: 

" Mother, mother ! where are you ? " 

And those tender arms gathered him in, 
And he thought he felt her warm breath on the back 
of his neck. 



Ill 



XXXII 



Now Autumn, with wild grapes in her hair, 
And plaited red leaves for a bodice, 
Danced down the land, laughing in the gale. 



The mad dance of death began: 
The going out in glory . . . 

Now the air tasted of sharp wild things, 

And there was a game-flavour in the lusty Earth. 

It was the time of dancing, and of wine, and of red 
living: 

The forests staggered, drunkenly, shouting wine- 
songs . . . 

And the youth, blown out of sleep by a mighty morn- 
ing. 
Tasted the pine-strong air of the heights. 
In a rain-rinsed brilliance of the sun among wild 
cloud-shadows, 

112 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

And took hold on life, and went with springing steps 
up the heights. . . . 

And he came to a slope of rock and stunted balsams, 
Wild, inaccessible, a primal spot: 
And living gusts of the lightning air swept down it 
Into the dark loud forest beneath. 



113 



XXXIII 



AND as he paused, with the mad kiss of the danc- 
ing sun on his lips, 
In the upper woods he saw a flashing of blue. 
And from out of the trees, blowing, she came . . . 



Two dogs straining on the leash, she held, 
And she was being drawn along in powerful strides, 
One strong foot after the other taking the hard ground 
obstinately . . . 

A garment of filmy blue tossed about her young white 

body. 
And her eyes were of the same blue, and were liquid 

with life. 
But her hair, blowing, was golden, and glowed heaped 

in the sun . . , 

Down the rocks she slipped, tugging: 
The strong hounds panted . . . 
114 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

Then they brought up, dancing, barking and gnashing 
at the youth . . . 

" Down ! down ! " she cried, in a voice like wind over 

water : 
And she looked up, beholding the youth. 



115 



XXXIV 

SHE smiled, glad that he was strong and young, 
And one blood with the weather. 

But she saw the shadow of the tragic child in his 
eyes . . . 

" Down ! " she cried again, and beat the dogs down 

with the thong . . . 
" So ! They will not hurt you ..." 

He laughed shortly; 

" Let me rein them in and follow them ! " he said . . . 

" Not both of them," she laughed ... 

" Each, one: I love the tug as of a wind on a sail." 

So he took one of the dogs, and standing very near 

her 
Saw the health glowing in her and poured like strong 

sun through her eyes . . . 
ii6 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

And his sickness was drawn to this laughing health . . . 
He gloried in her . . . they gloried in each other. 

So swiftly they slipped and slid and were pulled, each 

on the leash, 
Into the lower gale-loud woods. 



117 



XXXV 

OAK shouted to pine, and beech to cedar: 
High seas were running above them: 
Brush snapped, and wood-folk scurried: the leaves 

fell: 
Sun spilled wildly, they danced on shadows. 

And she talked with him of the wars, 

And of his home in the hills, and of his youth : 

And she yearned over the agony in his soul. 

And she said to him: 

" Who can get enough of life. 

And who can drink deep enough of this wine? 

All that I see, I long to possess, yes, to hug it into 

my body 
Till it runs in my blood . . . 
I would carry Earth if I were large enough." 

" Is this a girl? a woman? " he thought, 
" Or is this Earth, the Great Mother? " 
ii8 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

Then she spoke of her father, 
Who was a hunter as his father was a hunter: 
But also a hunter after wisdom . . . 
She had learnt more than stag or panther in her 
father's cabin . . . 

And so she spoke freely, openly: 

He could have listened till the end of days. 



119 



XXXVI 

'T^HEY came out on a mighty natural clearing above 

-■• a gorge: 
Oak and pine were heaven-high: 
The grass glistened in the wind: 
There stood the hunter's cabin . . . 

Her father waited them at the doorway: he greeted 

the stranger: 
The dogs leaped on him, barking . . . 

His used hands stilled them: he pointed upwards . . . 

There over the gorge, poised in mid-heaven, 
A lonely eagle screamed . . . 

Something of the eagle was in father and daughter : 
And the youth longed for such victory. 

Then they went in, where the savoury venison steamed, 
And the golden corn was hot . . . 
1 20 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

And the father let him stay, because his father was a 

hunter : 
And so he stayed, and hunted all that wild autumn. 



121 



XXXVII 

STORM was coming: the air was brown 
Swirling into opening heaven-gulfs of dirty yel- 
low: 
The dust eddied, and lamentation was on the 
woods . . . 



In the heart brooded the packed forebodings of the 

wind . . . 
Hot, ominous, smouldering with death . . . 

And the youth, and she of the golden hair, also youth. 
Stood on a great rock that jutted over the gorge. 
And gazed down into the shadowy abyss . . . 

Now he wanted to take her body in his arms, 
And pierce that strength with his life . . . 

He reached for her hand, but she drew back with a 
cry of anguish . . . 



122 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

" There is a shadow," she cried, " and a shape be- 
tween us . . ." 

And he looked, and between him and her, 

He saw his Mother standing with vivid eyes. 

The heavens burst: the autumnal rains came lashing: 
The world was drowned in tempest. 



123 



XXXVIII 

THEY stirred not, though the drench matted their 
hair, 
And their two bodies streamed, cold and beaten. 

He cried out: " I love you," 
But the words meant nothing. 

" No," she said, " it is not I you love ! Not I ! " 

He was numb with despair. 

" But you love me ? " he faltered. 

" Ah," she said, " the heart must love, though it love 

but a dream: 
But only a man shall win me." 

" And I," he said, " am I no man? " 

She was silent: he heard the rain on her lowered 

head . . . 
And he knew himself for what he was. 
124 



XXXIX 

H 



E felt that he must die to win her . . . 
Or he felt that he must carry her off struggling 
in his arms 
As a warrior wins a woman . . . 
But even in the image of this he saw his Mother. . . . 



Then she pointed at his sword, and she said : 
" Whence came this? " 

He blushed : " My Mother gave it to me when we 
parted." 

"And what said your Mother?" 

" She said there was a Dragon to slay." 

" There is a Dragon," said the girl. 

" But," he murmured, " there are no Dragons in these 
days." 

125 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

She too smiled in sorrow: 

" There are, there are," she said . . . 

" And when the dark hour comes. 

You must slay, though it slays yourself." 

Suddenly it seemed that a knife twisted in his breast: 
He tasted his own blood on his lips: 
And for horror, he could have shrieked. 

He had to go away from her then, and he almost 

ran: 
He was gone in the woods. 

She loved him so that her anguish equalled his . . . 
But she had to let him go to the death-hour. 



126 



XL 



ALL that night in the storm 
Hie ran down alleys of himself 
And dwelt in the early days . . . 



And now for the first time he knew his love for his 

Mother . . . 
For he seemed to be a baby again, crawling on the 

floor, 
And playing with coloured stones, and picking daisies 

apart, 
Drunk with the miracles of the world . . . 

And he was alone, in the black night, in his cradle, 
And he knew he was alone: 
And he cried for his Mother . . . 

And the darkness and the night enfolded him with 

those arms, 
And his longing was eased, and his fear fled away in 

golden dreams . . . 

127 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

But forever his father was stealing the love of his 

Mother, 
And he hated his father. 

And now that the world was blasted in pine and oak 
And life was shattered by yellow-flying death, 
He longed to be a child again. 

Then was safety, and then comfort, 

Then there were arms to shelter him and to soothe 

him . . . 
Only then was God. 

Now he wept for those comforting arms again: 
He did not want to taste the loneliness of being a 
man. 



128 



XLI 



SO he was buried in vision, starving for three days 
and three nights: 
But on the third night, he climbed a hill, where stood 

one lonely pine . . . 
He sank beneath this, awaiting death . . . 



" I would die," he moaned, " I would put away the 

burden . . . 
O beautiful Mother, dark Death, take me to your 

heart!" 

But as he lay prone, he became silent, 

And opening his eyes, he beheld the stars . . . 

And he knew the hour had come. 

He arose slowly, and turned: 
And there stood his Mother, as in life: 
The grey hair about the temples. 
The lines about the mouth, 
The sorrow of those much-experienced eyes. . . . 
129 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

She looked at him, beseeching: 

As though she said : "I have gone to much trouble 

for you: 
And none shall love you as I love you ! " 

He drew his sword slowly: his heart beating in his 
throat . . . 

" Can it be," he said, " that a Dragon can be so beau- 
tiful?" 



130 



XLII 



AND he said: 
" How, my darling, can I slay you. 
And how can I harm the least hair of your head ? " 



And again he said : 

** I have no comfort but you, and no dream but you." 

So the first hour passed . . . 

Then he raised his slack hand again, and murmured: 
"I am as one in a trance : I cannot do this thing." 

But he knew the time had come for him ... 

And now he drew up all the passion of his heart, 
A terrible wild passion, 

And willed to slay her through clenched teeth: 
He willed that she must go down in death: 
He willed to put her from him. 
131 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

But his heart whispered: 

" Hold ! hold ! this woman is your Mother ! " 

And so the second hour passed. 



132 



XLIII 



NOW he knew what death tastes like, 
And the wrench and throes of the last hour 
He was torn asunder, and gasping . . . 



And in vision he saw the stunted balsams and the 

rocks, 
And the leash-held girl with her firm feet . . . 

Wild battle began to rage in him, to do it or not to 

do it: 
And he went mad, and shut his eyes, and lifted up 

his sword, 
And would have struck, but through this madness a 

wilder madness came, 
And what he thought an image was a woman's body. 
The hand grasping away the sword, and the warm 

body struggling with his. 

In horror, he shrieked out, but now he struggled on. 

And a voice cried, " My son ! spare me ! " 
133 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

"Down, monster-mother!" he shouted, and opened 

his eyes, 
And stabbed her through the breast. 



134 



XLIV 

SOBBING, horribly shaken, he caught her falling 
body, 
And dared not look at it. 

" What have I done? " he asked himself, " what have 
I done?" 

But the body felt strangely light in his arms, 

And, curious, he looked, and behold! 

There lay, not a v^'oman, but a child in his arms . . . 

And curiously he looked closer. 

And he thought he knew the dead bleeding child. 

And then he saw that the child was himself 
Even as he was in the earlier days. 

He laid the child on the hillside, and he wept sweet 
tears ... 

" I have slain the child in me ! " he said . . . 
135 



XLV 

OPEN went his heart, and out of it flew eagles, 
And a music of great victory went all along his 
body: 
He arose as one unshackled, and he felt himself a 
giant. 

And he lifted up his arms to the stars, and he cried 

loud: 
" I have triumphed over self ! The child becomes a 

man!" 

He was light as air is light, and sweeping from the 

heavens 
Life, which is a flame, uplifted him with wings . . . 

" I was sucked away from greatness by a cancer in my 

side: 
It is cut away, it is clean cut off, and O, the world 

to conquer! 
Where is the Golden City where I may go and 

work?" 

136 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

Dawn began to blow her trumpets in the East: 
And like a wind of dawn he hastened down the hill- 
slope . . . 
Alone, he was alone, no Mother-Image tracked him, 
But all the life in him was free, ready to overflow. 



137 



XLVI 

'*/^ MY beloved," so she sang, 

^-^ "Your death-hour was birth-hour: 
You are radiant with the sun-crown of man . . . 
My conqueror has come from the hills, my god has 
come down from the mountains . . . 

" O you in whom the wild, the golden energy, even 

Life, 
Was sucked down into the dead depths of the Past, 
You have fetched Life up out of Earth in you, and it 

overruns. 
It overruns to the barren world . . . 

" I feel your loosed love radiantly 
Pouring from your heart to my heart . . . 
You have lost your Mother, to find her . . . 
For your Mother is Life, is Life ! " 



138 



XLVII 

WHO shall sing of the bridal in valleys of 
autumn, among the vineyards and the corn- 
fields, 
Or tell of the scent of apples on the night of love? 
Who shall chant of the blood-red harvest-moon above 

the granaries and the w^ine-press, 
And dropping fruits and the kiss of Adam and Eve? 

O white miraculous bodies that becoming one, change 

to a channel 
For all fire of all suns, the ecstasy of Creation: 
And by no love of a sterile God in the heavens, 
And by no love of a memory or an idol of the Past, 
But by strong love of the living God, even the Life in 

each other, 
Become Creators, bearing the living child! 

Now Man, the sower, sows the immortal seed. 

Now Woman, the sown, takes up the ancient burden 

of the Earth . . . 
The Mother-Past loosens her hands from them: 
A little child shall lead them . . . 
139 



XLVIII 

DO they come with bold confident steps in the 
crimson sunset, 
And the dropping sun beyond the stubble, 
And their shadows long behind them on the dust of 
the common road? 

They are bold, for they come even hand in hand . . . 
They are woman and man, great in love. 
And free, for that the heart's longing is met and en- 
folded, 
One by the other . . . 

Do they smile at the heavy blood-struggle among the 

millions, 
And they rising and falling, and doing the tasks of 

Earth, 
Among death, and despair, and bitter travail, and the 

dust of facts? 

They smile in a world lit by the light in their own 
hearts . . . 

140 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

Their love flowing into each other is great and it 

overflows . . . 
And what love touches becomes transfigured. 

But now do they raise their heads and are their lips 

parted 
In wonder and in prayer? 

Yea, before them, in the dust of the common road, 

And bathed in the last light of day, 

The Golden City hangs, the Golden City hangs. 

There rise her white towers toward the evening star 

and the pale moon, 
There lie her thronging streets, 
There the struggling millions wrestle with confused 

dreams, 
And are born, and marvel, and die . . . 

And woman and man, the human pair. 

Go toward the Golden City, and they smile through 

tears as they go . . . 
Death shall come soon enough, but not till Life is 

spent. 
Poured out on Earth in the laughter of October 

fields of harvest . . . 

141 



THE SONG OF LIFE 

A child beckons them; it is the timid and ungrown 
Future : 

And Night, the Mother, the Past, urges them on- 
ward . . . 

And they go to the Golden City, 
They go to the Golden City , . . 
It is the City of Life, 
And the Life is the Life of Man. 



142 



CREATION 
A Symbolic Drama of the Life of Man 



-a 



PROLOGUE 

As a photograph taken by lightning flash. 
Giving a brief glimpse of the night. 
So is this drama ... 

Its hero is Life . . . 

That which from the beginning rose, and, with swift 

changes of garment. 
Rushed up from the sun to the human beings we 

are . . . 

Only a glimpse, a flash, 

A look into self . . . 

For self is the whole of Creation . . . 

Then daylight — and darkness . . . 

Part, curtains ... 

And in the gloom, let the original Chaos be imag- 
ined ... 

Life in its own womb, before the stars of the heavens 
were. 

Or any planet swung in the sky . . . 

The play begins . . . 
Here is — yourself . . . 



I 

\^As curtains part, darkness, silence . . . a mist, with 
now and then a dim watery light upon it^ 
l^Far echoing voices, thin, almost immaterial.^ 

First Voice 
Sleep . . . still sleep ... 

Second Voice 
I stir . . . 

Voices 

[Floating like soft winds, with undulation through all 

space. ^ 
Longing . . , longing ... 

Fourth Voice 
What cries in Chaos ? 

Voices 

The voice, the lifting voice of a wave that begins, 

Begin to whirl, 

To circle, and slowly gather, 

And circling, roll ... 

147 



J 



CREATION 

A Gathering of Voices 

Longing . , . life is longing . . . 

Life is the lifting up of hands to the never-attained, 

Life is the many-thundered charging up receding 

heights . . . 
We rise, we sink . . . 

Fifth Voice 

Woe! the Silence quivers . . . 
It breaks open . . . 

Sixth Voice 

The Deep begins to march and move, 
The Night circles . . . 

Chorus 
\_A low chant gradually lifting.'^ 

Over the face of the deep, 
Over the face of the still deep, 
Borne from afar as a faint breath, borne from afar. 
Coming far in, and touching with lightest feet. 
The spirit of Need moves, troubling the womb of 
night . . . 

Counter-Chorus 

Abide, O you heavens, in Darkness, 
Abide, O you hosts, in Silence, 
148 



CREATION 

In peace abide, 
In sleep . . . 

Chorus 

\^Rising.'\ 
Behold, I am a heaven of thirst, I am a sky of hunger, 
I am the open mouth of the abyss . . . 

Counter-Chorus 
Abide, O thirsting heaven, in Darkness, 
Abide, O hosts . . . 

Chorus 
\_With a rising chant. 1 
Who shall lift to my desire the feasting light, 
And bear vt^onder of battle to my heart? 
Who shall pour the waters of life into the mouth of 

heaven, 
And give meat to the throat of Chaos? 

Counter-Chorus 
Be stilled, O bursting sides of Night, 
Be hushed back into the arms of yourself. 
Lie, O Chaos, in your own embrace. 
Be hushed, be still . . . 

Chorus 
Something seeks forth from me, 

Something arises in dark struggle to lift above me . . . 
149 



CREATION 

The great waves roll to the shore . . . 

They hang breathless; 

They hang at death's edge . . . 

[A silence . . . 

Then bursting forth in triumphant chant.} 

Creation thunders gloriously and the lips of life are 
opened . . . 

The glory of the heavens shall be made manifest . . . 

The feet of the deep shall laugh up the hills of 
night . . . 

The heavens at the right hand shall rise and shake 
their hair at the under heavens, 

The heavens at the left hand shall sing to that shak- 
ing forth of challenge . . . 

Skies shall declare themselves in flame, 

Darkness shall be advertised in fire . . . 

Counter-Chorus 

Then vroe unto Creation! 

Woe unto Creation that becomes as a Wanderer in 
the Night . . . 

Chorus 
Glory unto Creation ! 

Glory unto Creation that becomes a Mother seeking 
Children ... 

150 



CREATION 

Counter-Chorus 

Woe unto the child-bearer . . . 

Woe unto all those who conceive and bring forth chil- 
dren . . . 
They shall be slain by little things . . . 

Chorus 

So sings not the Mother's heart: 

But it sings of immortality: 

Her child is immortality . . . 

Yea, the Mother's heart is singing of vision, 

For she conceives beyond herself, 

She doth arise above herself, 

She putteth forth a hand, she putteth forth a spirit, 

Through these she works her will on the world . . . 

Counter-Chorus 
Death shall come . . . 

Chorus 
It comes on the lips of her young ... 

Counter-Chorus 
Sorrow shall come . . . 

Chorus 
It comes at the hands of her own . . . 
151 



CREATION 

Counter-Chorus 
Hate shall come . . . 

Chorus 

It comes with the kiss of Love . . . 
It comes with the smile of Joy . . . 
It changes worlds . . . 
Laughter, laughter shall be in all my skies, 
Children of laughter, children of laughter shall ride 
some little atom in the Night . . . 

\^A deepening cry.'\ 

Come! 

Out of the depths, out of the under-darkness, 

Out of the nether-silence, 

Come to my longing, Children . . . 

This is life's cry: the cry for children, 

For the unborn lures the woman-soul of the world . . . 

The Cry 

\^As of wind again.'\ 

Desire . . . desire . . . 
Life is undying desire, 
Life is longing . . . 

[Thunder, lightning, welter of chaos."] 
152 



CREATION 

Counter-Chorus 

Roll down, and asunder, 

Roll down, and bear down, 

Break in the battle ... 

Then smite, smite! 

Oh, darted be on the deeps the javelins of lightning, 

Roll, parturient thunder, rumbling in tumbled 
chaos . . . 

Death, death, and a doom of death on the wan- 
derer . . . 

Chorus 

Down, Self, mine enemy! 

Down, ancient foe! 

I battle for the light . . . 

Counter-Chorus 

You shall not rise . . . 

The heavens roll back upon you . . . 

Chorus 
I am rising: travail of birth is in me . . . 

Counter-Chorus 

Travail of death: woe of annihilation . . . 
153 



CREATION 

Chorus 

I am the Womb: I labour . . . 
I am the Seed: I battle . . . 

Counter-Chorus 
Destruction, doom and destruction overtake you . . . 

Chorus 
I am the Womb . . . 
I am the Seed . . . 
I am the All-Mother . . . 

[The Battle.'] 

Chorus 
Higher, higher! 

Madder, wilder, in swirl, turn, delirium, 
Flame is born ! 

Counter-Chorus 

Down, down! With darkness, anguish, and heaviest 

weight of space, 
Quench the blazing! 

Chorus 

Victory ! flame ! Stars are born ! 

[Blackness, confusion . . . A wild running forth 
as from a flinging scarf, of youths with blow- 
154 



CREATION 

ing flaming hair . . . The Stars . . . they 
come dancing^ laughingj joyous . . .] 

Chorus (the All-Mother) 

{Very low.l 

Do I hear many silvery voices, 
Do I hear the feet of my desire? 
Ah, the heavens, become a sudden harmony, 
Grow still with thrill of life . . . 
For Love, Love is established . . . 
Hark, the Silence breaks with the cry of living chil- 
dren, 
Vastness sings out loud with a million lips of flame . . . 

Stars 

[/« chorus.^ 

Weave in a dance of fires: 

And let the glory of our flaming make a path in the 

night. . . . 
In the Mother's arms we laugh ... 

All-Mother 
{Calling to them.} 
Youth undying! 

Stars 
We hearken ... we pause and hearken ... 
155 



CREATION 

All-Mother 
What news in heaven ? 

Stars 

We drop golden flakes of flame on our paths before 
and after .... 

All-Mother 

What is this running of white feet up and down the 
slopes of night? 

Stars 
Heralds of Creation . . . 

All-Mother 
Galaxy, where wander you ? 

Galaxy 
Hand in hand, across an arch of the sky . . . 

\^A crowd of stars, weaving across the stage.^ 

All-Mother 
And you bright seven ? 

The Pleiades 
We twinkle together in a corner . . . 
Night, unscalable, overhead, 
156 



"j^^ 



CREATION 

Night, undescendable, under our feet . . . 

\_The Stars now divide into Chorus, and Semi- 
chorus J] 

Chorus 

Whose was the spirit that blew on space, and it blos- 
somed, and stars came forth? 

Semi-Chorus 
Shout, hosts! Creation glories! 

Chorus 
Who set us on the everlasting heights? 

Semi-Chorus 
Sing, O ye heavens! Break forth in singing, ye stars! 

Chorus 

Was this the dawn. Sky-millions, 
When the morning stars sang together and all the sons 
of life shouted for joy? 

Semi-Chorus 

Then lift up your eyes on high, oh, ye stars, 
And lower your eyes to the depths of the mighty 
heavens . . . 

157 



CREATION 

All 

We are arrayed in flame 

And our throats sing praise to the Mother that bore us, 
Glory sing we to the grandeur of the Mother, 
Praised be the Mother forevermore. 

\^All motion ceases, the Stars stand with raised 
faces, and chant together in mighty unison.^ 

Arise, shine, for our light is come. 

And our fires overrun in our shouts of praise . . . 

We sow the sky with seed . . . 

Children shall play and circle about our feet. 

And they shall drink the life of our flaming heights. 

And they shall be bathed and cleansed in our mighty 

radiance . . . 
For we have our City in the Everlasting, 
And the march of our feet is from eternity to eternity. 

All-Mother 
We have broken our bread together: I am that 
bread . . . 

Stars 

The taste thereof is the rock of our strength 
And the rivers of our light . . . 

All-Mother 
You are the quick feet of my longing . . . 
158 



CREATION 

But where are the eyes through which I shall look on 
your glories? 
\_A cry from the depths beneath the stars.~[ 

The Cry 
The Wanderer passes! 

All-Mother 

What lonely cry in the nethermost deeps is that? 

[The Stars crowd and gaze downavard as over a 
precipice.^ 

A Star 
Many a sky below us, he twinkles in the abyss . . . 

Another Star 

I will run down the slants of space to speak him . . . 
Dropping from heaven to heaven . . . 
[Darkness-I 

[Through the darkness, the Star, trailing fire 
like a Comet, shoots curving downward for a 
long time. 
While he descends, the Chorus sings.^ 

All-Mother 
Surely there is no triumph like the triumph of the 
Mother . . . 

159 



CREATION 

When she beholdeth at her breast the lips of her child 

And when in her ear its cry soundeth 

Then doth she glory because she is the life of life 

Who hath all to give, and who gives forever . . . 

For her flesh has divided in two, 

And the lesser drinks milk of the greater. 

And the lesser grows thereupon greater than the 

greater, 
And the greater lays her down and dies that the lesser 

may be greater . . . 
Yea, it is on the dead dust of the mother that the child 

rises . . . 
This is her triumph, to pass beyond herself in a new 

body, 
For a child is her channel . . . 
And so I am anhungered for this triumph . . . 
For if children have given me feet 
There shall be other children to give me eyes. 
And children to give me marvellous lips that sing. 

1A bursting radiance, as from a powerful search- 
light. Standing in the glow is a Man, the 
Sun . . . The Star is poised above him, tip- 
toe like a Mercury."] 

Star 
Hail to this lonesome radiance In the gross gulf of 
Night! 

1 60 



CREATION 

Sun 

Hail, Swiftness, of the long wings and the scattered 

tail! 
Whence came you, flaming? 

Star 

I jostle with the crowd up yonder across the belt of the 

heavens . . . 
Why lies your path through this Emptiness ? 

Sun 

I am the lonely Wanderer, I am the Sun, 

I am the seeker and the hunter after the unattained. 

And my belly is flame of desire for a greatness I feel 

but see not; 
I am ripe with unsown seed, 
But the moment is upon me, and mine hour has 

come ... 

Star 
What hour, O lonely Wanderer? 

Sun 

The hour of the depth, and of the dark, and of 
death . . . 

[^A cloud begins to swallow him.'\ 
i6i 



CREATION 

Star 
Has death come upon this wanderer? 

Sun 

Into thee, O profound Mother, I sink and thou gather- 

est me up . . . 
Thou giveth me solace of silence, enfolding Death . . . 
Now am I hushed of longing ... 

Star 
Death? death? 
I dart a hundred skies away! 

{^Darts off ; a blaze: is gone . . . 

The Sun is lost in cloud.^ 

All-Mother 

[Softly singing. "^ 

Art thou in my arms again, O child? 

Hast thou returned to the womb that bore thee, my 

own? 
This is not death thou seekest, but this is life . . . 
And now shalt thou find thy Mother in a young form 

of misty glory, 
In a young sweet flesh, 
And thou shalt be the first of those to taste thyself in 

two, 

162 






CREATION 

O not in one, but two, 

Two, that woven together in the ecstasy of the kiss 

Shall bring forth life of a greatness beyond star-great- 
ness, 

And a grandeur beyond all flame . . . 

Hush, now, the miracle ! 
[Silence . . . 
[Then, in one pure clear voice.'] 

From Adam-Sun in his Eden of still space, 

Sleeping, a rib is torn . . . 

Eve-Earth is sundered from him . . . 

Eve-Earth, the misty woman of the morning skies . . . 

\_Out of the cloud gropes a beautiful girl, the 
Earth, hair flying, dazed, hand outstretched.] 

Earth 
Where am I in this newness and dazzle of the world, 
On this blue floor that flies with my feet, 
In this pure height where mists blow cool about me? 
[Cloud vanishes. SuN lying sleeping, she turns 
to him.] 
Oh, sleeping God, Oh, God of the glowing joy. 
Lifter in my heart of light, that makes the least drop of 

my mists sparkle with fire. 
Thou glorious one, thou heroic strength, thou life- 
giver, 

163 



CREATION 

Thine am I, all thine, and forever thine! 

[Bends and kisses him . . . 
He opens his eyes.^ 

Sun 
Is this then death? 
This dream of the much-desired, 
This vision of the light-footed dancer and singer, the 
beautiful one? 

All-Mother 
[Thunderinff.l 
Away! away! Out of his arms, forth to the far un- 
known ! 

Sun 

Come to the binding of my arms. 

And heed never the thunder running round heaven. 

Come, we shall stop the flood of Time, and stand and 

remain. 
Youth eternal that dies not ! 

Earth 

No, there is in me the flood that cannot be stopped, 
And the tide that turns not . . . 

And my feet are hurried into the abyss, and I cannot 
bide . . . 

164 



CREATION 

\_Runs from him, he rises and pursues, she keeps 
circling him.'\ 

Sun 

Who has driven us asunder, and who pursues us with 

an ancient vengeance? 
For I cannot come to you ! 

Earth 
Your light comes to me . . . 

Sun 

I toss my glory like a garment over your heaven, 
But I cannot follow . . . 

Earth 
Your light comes to me, 
Your light, beloved, comes to me . . . 
Your light, stealing across my breasts with ruddy 

kisses, 
And lighting the misty hollows between my breasts. 
And my body is bathed in dews and begins to sing with 

small fires . . . 

Sun 
Far-held and far-bound 
Yet I shall pour on you my mighty desire, 
I dart arrows of flame upon you and against you . . . 

165 



CREATION 

Earth 

Mine ocean shakes himself and he chants against his 

bounds in your dawn, 
The deep mountains raise their heads and are on fire, 
The valleys call to unborn dancing feet, 
And I dream of little lips and little eyes and clinging 

hands . . . 

Sun 

I have encompassed you with fire, 
I press closer . . . 

madly I sing to your blood and run streams of 

ecstasy down through your body, 
Madly I sing, catching you up, drawing you close . . . 
Now we are bound, are bound . . . now we are lost, 

are lost . . . 

Earth 

1 am stricken, I am killed ... 
No more, O cruel one! 

Sun 

Wound with the blue sheet of her skies 
And with my golden lance, 
I smite through my beloved. 

Earth 

Death darkens round me . . . 
1 66 



i 



CREATION 

Sun 
{^Triumphantly. '[ 
The seed is sown ! 

Earth 
\_With a cry of anguish.^ 

Save me, Mother of the Heavens ! 

Oh, thou that hast knoM^n and thrice-known the carry- 
ing and the bearing and the great sorrow of 
children ! 

Save me from thy dark fate, save me . . . 

Let me go back, O Mother ! 

Sun 
The seed is sown ! 

{Sudden darkness.^ 

All-Mother 

[Softly.] 

Not one jot nor one tittle of the pangs of child-bearing 
May pass from thee, O thou, thou Earth, beautiful 

child; 
But thine ancient mother suffers this birth with thee, 
And in thy flesh she seeketh to grope and crawl out on 

thee and beyond thee; 
In little things she becometh great, 
167 



CREATION 

And in the least of these she becometh the highest . . . 
But the least of these is not yet born, 
Only the lesser . . . 

[Scene unfolds . . . hills, trees, the sea in the 
distance . . .] 

Earth-Chorus 

The morning shines out of heaven, 

And my blue seas are singing silver-flecked on the 

shores. 
And these my long soft tresses, the winds, blow about 

me spiced with earliest Spring . . . 
All is magic, all is freshness, all is fire, 
Wings are throbbing, leaves are fluttering, waves are 

bursting . . . 

[A pause.] 

Ah, so many sounds of little life . . . 

Who sings in the wind ? who cries in the sea ? 

Who whispers in the rustle of the grasses ? 

Who slides there in the moss ? 

And what bright wings flicker in the sun? 

Speak . . . 

Thin Voice 

We are the tiny grass-blades, Mother . . . 
1 68 



CREATION 

Earth-Chorus 
What lifts in you, quivering, changing to green? 

Voice 
Flame, flame lifts in us. 

A Strange Voice 
I am the Serpent, sliding in the moss . . . 

Another 
I am the Bee, burning in the sunny air . , . 

Another 
I am Flame in Water: I am the glinting Fish . . . 

Another 
I am Flame in Air: I am the veering Bird . . . 

Another 
I am Flame in Forest: I am the running Beast . . . 

Earth-Chorus 
My children! 
Why do you consume each other? 

All 
Flame consumes . . . 

169 



CREATION 

Earth-Chorus 
Why do you multiply? 

All 

Flame creates! 

Earth-Chorus 
An agony enters me . . . 
You struggle, you tear each other, 
You dart poison and death upon each other, 
Some go forward, some go backward . . . 
When I gather you close, you run from me, 
When I drive you forth, you cling to me . . . 
Ever death, ever birth, ever pain . . . 
But through all runs a longing: and I feel in the air 

and the soil 
Terrible flame-agitation : desire : tremblings of love . . . 

Some of the Voices 
We sing glory to the highest we seek, 
Glory to little things . . . 

Other Voices 
Not we: we sleep in the ooze and the warmth of the 
Earth . . . 

Voices 
We sing glory to the highest we seek. 
Glory to the least of these . . . 
170 



CREATION 

Other Voices 

Not we : we long back, back to the ancient world . . . 
\_A Man-like Ape enters.'] 

Earth-Chorus 

Who comes among my children 

With a new cunning in his face 

And a crooked unrightness? 

Who is he that has sprung up into the boughs 

And hateth the hard ground ? 

Ape 
I am the tail-swinger : I am the Ape. 

\_Enter a group of Apes, circling about.] 

Earth-Chorus 

Gleams are in their brains! Streaks of a strange 

dawn! 
The beginnings of laughter! 

First Ape 

Something is drawing me to the unknown ground, 
And the straightening back and the lifted eyes . . . 
I desire to arise above this crooked body . . . 
171 



A 



CREATION 

Second Ape 
This is not tree-speech . . . 

First Ape 

No, a greater follows me . . . from afar . . . 
I go to seek him . . . 

Third Ape 

Would you leave the boughs of the trees 

For the dark peril of the ground ? 

Would you leave the swinging sky-beds where we are 

safe from our foes? 
Are you different from us? 

Ape 
Behold, I cannot otherwise : I am driven . . . 

An Old Ape 

But I am your Mother ... I that have given you suck 
Shall hold you here . . . 

Another Ape 

I am your Mate ... I that have borne your young 

ones, 
Shall hold you here . . . 

172 



CREATION 

First Ape 
Some god in me calls . . . 
Away! I must go find him ... 

[They pounce on hini.^ 

[Darkness.^ 

All-Mother 

Since the foundations of the world, 

And since first light travelled in long and crossing 

beams through the depths thereof, 
The Serpent of Eternity, the Writhing Mother of the 

Abyss 
Grows ever more meek and small in her flesh : 
For she descended first into the suns of heaven, 
And she descended then into the Earth, 
And she descended next into the lesser things of the 

Earth, 
These runners and crawlers . . . 
But now she goeth down into nakedness. 
And into the unfanged helplessness of uncovered flesh. 
Yea, down to the awaited one, the least of these . . . 

But, sing, ye stars, and shout, ye hosts of life. 
And let the Mother's heart expand in flaming grandeur, 
She goeth down into vastness, she descendeth into great- 
ness. 
She sinketh into Man . . . 
173 



CREATION 

[A dim twilight before the dawn. From among 
the apes J a human pair, savage, wild, step forth.^ 

The Apes 
[Each in turn.} 
Who are these tailless ones? — 
They are deformed: they are unlike us — 
They have lost a lot of hair. — 
What is this ? They laugh. 
Death to them . . . 

Voices 

[From all directions, each in turn.l^ 

The serpent shall sting them ... for their feet are 

naked . . . 
The tiger spring on them . . . for their hands- are not 

sharpened . . . 
The sea overwhelm them ... for they have no 

fins . . . 
The mountains burst and smother them ... for they 

dare walk on the slopes . . . 
Cold and famine shall stalk them ... for they are 

little and helpless . . . 
And the sun sicken them . . . 
And flame devour them . . . 

[The Apes start slowly toward the pair, who 
174 



CREATION 

have been groping around, now and then rudely 
embracing.^ 

Woman 
I am very hungry, 
And I am very cold, 
And I am afraid of this wailing in the wind . . . 

Man 

There are bats as large as the sea 
Circling on high . . . 

Woman 
[Seeing the apes-l 
Beware ! Sharp, sharp ! Our enemies ! 

Man 

I shall bite them with my teeth, 
Rend them with my nails, 
And drink of their blood. 

Woman 
No : beware ! They are many ! 

Man 
Then I must reach beyond myself . . . 
175 



CREATION 

{Snatches a bough, tears it clean, and attacks the 
Apes as they come. 

They run off.'\ 

Man 

Do they not fear me ? Am I not their master ? 
Yes, and your master? 

Woman 

You are my god and my master . . . 

But I too have a hunger in me, 

An ancient hunger, a hunger to be a god ... 

It is a pang here, 

[Presses her heart.'\ 

A dark sorrow here, 

A cry for little hands and for little lips and for little 

eyes, 
A soft mouth at my swelling breast ... 

Man 

Come, you are mine ! 

[Roughly embraces her.'\ 

[The twilight grows lighter, the sun begins to 
rise.] 

176 



CREATION 

Woman 
Behold ! The Stranger coming again over the sea ! 
Oh, who is this? 

Man 
This is the god, the young god ; 
Mark, how he leaps up, armed and aflame, from the 

eastern sea . . . 
He shall walk the zenith and we shall shrink away from 

his hotness . . . 
But he shall go down the slopes of quiet evening, 
With stars about his burial. 

Woman 
Strange! but stranger this ground 
That smells and grows underfoot . . . 

Man 
Hush! that is our Mother . . . 
Her skin is warm in the morning sun, 
And wet, and sweet . . . 

Woman 
Then who may wave there in the bending of yonder 
tree? 

Man 
You see his arms, and the toss of the green-topped head ; 
He is the rooted god. 

177 



CREATION 

Woman 

But hearken, the hollow morning thunder on rocks of 

the sands, 
Who shouts there ? 

Man 
The Ancient One, 

The Rider of the Many Leaping Herds, 
The Chanter beside Cliffs . . . 
He is Ocean . . . 

Woman 
And now I see eyes again, 
Eyes and tails in the tree-tops ... 
Oh, our enemies ... 

Man 

Cursed be they! cursed be they! 
These apes are devils of the woods! 

Woman 
I am afraid . . . 
For we are alone, alone .... 
I am in torment . . . 

Man 
We must learn to fight, 

[Shakes the hough.'] 

178 



CREATION 

We must learn to be masters beneath the gods . . . 
We are encircled with enemies. 

[Darkness.^^ 

All-Mother 

Behold, a darker division has come into the world . . . 

A greater light . . . 

For Man has eaten of the Tree of Knowledge; 

He knows . . . 

And now he can never move in the half-sleep of the 
animal and the Earth . . . 

Nevei roll in the harmonious tides of Creation . . . 

For knowing, he can choose : 

He is the hand I awaited, he is the light . . . 

He can choose to slink back to me, and lose himself in 
sloth and abandon : 

Or he can choose terrific new creation beyond him- 
self . . . 

Away from the Mother is his commandment . . . 

He must go forth to the uncreated, to the unfore- 
seeable ... 

Fire-hearted, fire-lashed, 

Forever away and away, the unsatisfied Wanderer! 

But lo! through him I reach to a new dawn of con- 
sciousness . . . 

179 



CREATION 

He is flesh on the way toward godhood, 
On the way to my greater Self . . . 

{^As darkness lifts, a draped fine figure of a man 
standing at front on right side . . . Clouds at 
rear, and on left and right: open space in 
centre.^ 

Man 

Out of the darkness I rise in my generation, 
As the sun rises, 
Into the darkness I sink, 
As the sun sinks . . . 

But forth from the death spring children as the new 
sun rises. 

Behold, the march of the army of humanity: 

See the ages go by: moving by millions, between the 

sun and the moon, 
Out of vastness and into vastness. 
Impounded life ever pushing forth. 

The whip of the great god, Longing, drives them . . . 

Away! away! 

Away from the All-Mother, away from the sun, away 

from the Earth, 
Away from the beast, 
Away from all mothers . . . 
1 80 



CREATION 

So age lifts up from age: so man mounts by climbing 
on his own shoulders . . . 

\_A pageant of man starts over the stage from right 
to left. As they pass, he marks them.] 

From the ape, the savage . . . 

Driven from the beast, they make in their own image, 

Shadow-gods . . . 

This is their longing beyond themselves, shaped in 

dream-symbols . . . 
And following after, they rise into civilisation . . . 

The greater race passes: 

Egypt, following Osiris, born of longing, 

With sunbright cities of the Nile and the wonder of 

Cleopatra, 
Drives on the wind, and vanishes . . . 

But now Zeus leads . . . 
Radiant from the dust, leaps Greece 
With golden clouds of gods. 
And Helen walks again . . . 

But the girls go down to the dust, and the heroes are 
no more. 

Up rises the sun of Jupiter, 
Rome shines: 

And Caesar's legions come from the conquest: 
i8i 



CREATION 

But Earth devours the Empire, 

And the shouting hosts are hushed . . . 

Behold, from the East, the stream . . . 
Jehovah's children, the seed of Abraham, 
Come out of Asia, David singing, Isaiah thundering, 
And follow^ing them, the longing of humanity 
Shaped in a lowly god, young Jesus . . . 

Now under God, the Father, 

The Early Christians pray and fast and are perse- 
cuted . . . 
But they scatter the strange commandment: 
Save that ye be born again, ye shall surely die . . . 

Christ's Crusaders come . . . 

Steel-clad knights and shining kings going down to the 

Holy Land, 
Bright in the sun they shine, but their banners pass into 

death . . . 

Lo, then a new god born of man's longing . . . 

The god of all men in one. 

Democracy . . . 

France shouts from the dust, and flames in her 

Terror . . . 
The Tumbrils rumble by . . . 
182 



CREATION 

The Eagles of Napoleon move toward St. Helena . . . 
\^The procession stops.^ 

Now man's manhood begins : 

Gone are the childish gods, gone is the Mother Heaven, 
Mary is gone, and Mithra, and the Galilean: 
There is no god in the past when we long to run home 

to a haven : 
The new gods are the gods of the future, 
Ourselves grown greater . . . 

Yet, as of old, 

Spring's floods rush down the hills; 

The blue sea breaks: 

The sowers of seeds are swinging along bright furrows : 

The towers of tall cities taking the first gold of the 

morning sun, cry Dawn : 
The toilers bend to their tasks, 
Steam and lightning serve like genii under the hands 

of men : 
And the whole of the living world is as the flashing 

crest of the breaker bursting about us 
Risen from the ocean of the past: 
The sea that shall lift a new wave when ours has 

vanished . . . 

Who buried Atlantis 
And devoured Egypt? 

183 



CREATION 

Into what jaws has Athens gone? 

Galley-slave and Agamemnon, the great king, are 

shovelled under, 
And the girl that combed the hair of Helen is dust with 

her golden mistress . . . 
Cities of great pride, with their multitudes, 
Have gone down, 
And Spring, that called out the boy Dante into the 

streets of Florence, 
Silent when Beatrice walked, 
Opens wild roses in the ruins over the dead . . . 
The snows where Saga heroes fought 
Melted with those warriors. 
And the desert girls of Arabia are only a song and an 

echo in our brains . . . 

Who has kept a tally of the souls that have been on the 

six continents? 
Who marked the nameless slave-boy in Rome, in the 

crowd hailing Caesar home? 
Or some mother of Africa, fifteen thousand years ago, 

wailing because her child was blind ? 
In what books are the records kept? 
In what divine index are listed the struggles of millions 

multiplied by millions? 

Ah, we are the wave into which this mounting sea has 
risen . . . 

184 



CREATION 

The height of our curve measures the infinite impulse 

of those stopped hearts . . . 
The shine of our flashing waters retains the glow of 

their vision and their works. 
Gathered into immortality they circle and sing in 

us . . . 
In us, their Heaven, 
In us, their Hell, 
In us, who are they, breathing again and bargaining 

in streets of steel . . . 

\_The procession of the moderns starts.'\ 

Behold, from the doorways. 

The school-children pour to the streets, the pave- 
ments golden with morning . . . 

The electric traction swings a town's millions to 
work . . . 

The lovers whisper across the miles in the telephone 
booths . . . 

The scientist tracks a germ on his microscope's 
slide . . . 

The mills roar, puddling white iron, the great ships 
put to sea . . . 

Among the engines humanity yearns, and phantoms 
lure us. 

Gigantic with tools we weep as of old on our dead, 

185 



CREATION 

And mammoth with power, we falter, crushed by a 
doubt . . . 

The same great war: the same great urge: the same 

birth and death ... 
Are kisses sweeter than in Carthage ? 
Is failure more bitter than on the hill of Gethsemane? 
Has death lost its sting since Rachel ? 

Whither goes the pageantrj^ and the vision-clouded 

army? 
Dust — flame : dust — flame . . . 
Out of a cry, silence . . . 
Out of silence, a cry . . . 

\Darkness.'\ 

All-Mother 

The Wanderer, Man . . . 

Through him I lift : through him I flame . . . 

He seeks the unfound : 

He longs for the unattainable . . . 

He searches for the Treasure . . . 



1 86 



INTERLOGUE 

So has a glimpse been given 

Of all man knows of his coming hence: 

That epic writ in his Earth and in his body . . . 

Chasmic unorganised forces shaped into Man, 

And out of it the brief canto of historic times . . . 

Background you have seen, yours, mine: 

The soul's interior, running in darkening corridors back 

through cycles . . . 
The plenteous, all-too-cheap, gross-numbered Past . . . 

"Now see the individual. 

Yourself, myself. 

Emerge from that enormousness. 

Yet containing it. 

Passing from birth to death, and in his life 

Carrying the repetitions of the process . . . 

Not the creation of stars 

Profounder than the creation of a soul . . . 

See him as he is. 

In the gritty details of the life of the present instant, 
187 



CREATION 

The harshj unbudgable facts whose interweaving 
Spin at last life, until beneath the surface 
We see once more Chaos-Creation surging with epic 
song . . . 

Rise from the music of memory 

To the discords of impinging reality . . . 

A man appears before you. 



i88 



II 

[Darkness lifts . . . A mean room in a London house 
. . . a low fire burning in the grate . . . An old 
man staggers in. He is poorly clad, white-haired 
and bearded. Clutches his neck. Goes to wash- 
stand, gulps down water. '\ 

[Enter Landlady.] 

Landlady 
Well, what ails you? 

Man 
[Gasping.] I won't trouble you much longer. 

Landlady 

Won't ! I should say not. You're going to get out 
of here. 

Man 

Yes, I am going to leave . . . 

Landlady 
It's good you've come to your senses. 
189 



CREATION 

Mak 

So I have . . . Here. [Hands her a rinff.^ Pawn 
that. It will pay for'all. 

Landlady 

Lord love us! [^Changing her attitude.} Well, 
after all, stay if you want. 

Man 
No, I can't stay. 

Landlady 
And why can't you? 

Man 
[Smiling.l You see, I am dying . . . 

Landlady 
Oh, come, come, that's talk. 

Man 
No. I must die. 

Landlady 
Must — die ? 

Man 
Yes. I must find — find — out there — 
190 



CREATION 

Landlady 

He's out of his head, I fancy . . . What's this 
you're talking about finding ? 

Man 
Woman, don't you, too, seek — this — 

Landlady 
No. I don't do anything like that . . . - 

Man 
Doesn't that mean anything to you ? 

Landlady 
Mean? 

Man 

I have been searching. I've tried a whole lifetime. 
God! how I suffered! But I never found it . . . 

Landlady 
What is it? 

Man 
I don't know. I've got to die . . . 

Landlady 
But what for? 

191 



CREATION 

Man 
Then again, with a new body to help me . . . 

Landlady 
Oh, you're speaking of Reincarnation . . . 

Man 

Is it that? I must try again ... I must go down 
into the Fountain of Youth, and arise new again, young, 
ready for the next lap of the journey . . . You see, I 
came from a little Mother once. Now I must go back 
to a little Mother. She will be a gate to let me 
through . . . 

Landlady 
You're a raving maniac. Don't come near me. 

Man 

Seeing I'm dying, I don't mind telling you, it's you 
who are the raving maniac. What is Life to you? 
What is this Opportunity? Why, it's a pint of ale, a 
quarrel, a kiss, a bit of roast-beef, a clog dance, a brace 
of children, a few streets of London . . . And yet, ye 
Gods! right in you, the fires of creation burn: you are 
a bit of the sun wandering across the ages: you are on 
the way to godhood : you are driven by the longing that 
192 



CREATION 

filled our night with stars . . . But you betray your 
purpose: gut your flame: extinguish yourself in 
grease ... 

Landlady 
I'll have the police in if you insult me like that ! 

Man 

Police! London paving stones! What's under 
London, I ask you? What's under Earth? What's 
under heaven? Dig deep enough and you will find 
fire, fire, fire! 

Landlady 

Lord love us, he means the great London fire. I've 
heard of that. 

Man 

Life is a vision we have ourselves created . . . 
London shall pass like Athens, civilisations crumble, 
new Atlantises be buried . . . but I go on: I the 
Wanderer ... I change my clothes: I take off my 
garment of flesh for new raiment: I take off my gar- 
ment of civilisation for new civilisations . . . 

Landlady 

I ain't got no idea what you're talking about. 
193 



CREATION 



Man 



No, you haven't. Most people haven't. I can't help 
it. / know. [He cries out.} Mother! Mother! 
I am coming! [Sinks and dies.] 

Landlady 

[Shrieking.] He's dead! He died raving! 
[Darkness.] 

All-Mother 

The Wanderer has gone down into the womb 

again . . . 
He shall rest a space from his hard travail in the 

silence of the maternal waters . . . 
Then he must arise and go on . . . 
The Treasure runs before him . . . 



[A neat pleasant bedroom in New York . . . A woman 
in bed, and a doctor and nurse attending. Woman 
lies unconscious : a new-born baby at foot of bed.] 

Doctor 

[Drying his hands on a towel.] Well, that job's 
done. 

194 



CREATION 

Nurse 
[Fussiriff with baby.] Shall I let her husband in? 

Doctor 

Oh, no. Let him wait a bit. We've had enough 
hysterics. They're all the same, aren't they? 

Nurse 
The women ? 

Doctor 

You'd think she was the first woman in the world 
to have a baby. [^Pausing over the bed.] She's still 
unconscious. 

Nurse 

Poor thing. So young, too. 

Doctor 

Tush ! "What is she for ? This has been going on 
for millions of years. 

Nurse 
But it's her first. 

Doctor 

She screamed as if she were giving birth to a moun- 
tain. 

195 



CREATION 

Nurse 
Well, you know, doctor, you were born so yourself. 

Doctor 

[Laughing.^ And look at me now! Was I worth 
screaming for? [Knock on door.'\ There he goes 
again. Tell him about it, and tell him to wait. 
[Nurse goes out.l [Doctor stands over bed.] Hm ! 
eyelids fluttering! 

Woman 
[Opening her eyes, sighing.^ Ah! 

Doctor 
Yes, yes . . . 

Woman 
[Strangely.] Where am I? 

Doctor 
That's right. So. Everything is over . . . 

Woman 
Over? Am I dead? 

Doctor 

You have come through splendidly. 
196 



CREATION 

Woman 

Come through? But I was ... I was torn to 
pieces . . . 

Doctor 

Tut! it was an easy confinement. 

Woman 
[^Realising. '] Oh . . . but . . . the baby! 

Doctor 
It's a fine baby ... 

Woman 

[Alarmed.] Where is it? What have you done 
with it? 

Doctor 

Be very quiet now, and you'll see the little 
stranger . . . 

Woman 

Oh, show me my baby . . . [He picks it up and 
brings it to her.] I can't see. I can't even lift my 
head . . . Don't scold me, doctor . . . 

Doctor 

Here, I'll lay it on the pillow . . . [Places it beside 
her.] 

197 



CREATION 

Woman 

[Turning toward it.'] Ah! Ah! Oh, look! It 
moves! It's opening its mouth! Oh, God ... I 
can't believe it . . . 

Doctor 

It's a real baby . . . 

Woman 
[In awe. ] But what is it? [Hesitating.'] A girl? 

Doctor 
It's a boy . . . 

Woman 

Ah! my little one! My son! I feel as if I were 
going to faint! Let me touch it . . . [Touches it.] 
Forgive me! I've got to cry! I'm too happy . . . 
[Sobs.] 

[Darkness.] 



[Then, a library . . . Evening . . . Curtained win- 
dow in back ... Woman seated near table.] 

Woman 
[Sighing.] Ah, that I were dead . . . 
198 



CREATION 

\_Enter Man, in overcoat and hat. Comes in ab- 
stractedly, goes to her and kisses her.J 

Man 

I'm tired . . . [Takes off hat and overcoat.^ 
Where's the boy? 

Woman 
Oh, playing around somewhere . . . 

Man 
What's the matter ? 

Woman 
Nothing . . . 

Man 
Has anything happened? 

Woman 
No . . . 

Man 
You're not ill, are you? 

Woman 

I'm perfectly well ... 

199 



CREATION 

Man 

Now this isn't the first time — [^Breaks off irrita- 
bly.] Why can't you speak out? 

Woman 
What is there to say ? 

Man 

[Anffrily.} The same old story . . . You know 
I'm worn out. 

Woman 

[Sharply.] Yes, I'm the fag-end of your day . . . 
the dregs . . . 

Man 
What would you have me do that I am not doing? 

Woman 
There was a time you begged for my kisses. 

Man 
But I am giving you everything . . . 

Woman 
Except yourself . . . 

Man 
I am spending soul and body for you . . . 
200 



CREATION 

Woman 
It isn't that I am after . . . 

Man 
You never think what I'm after . . . 

Woman 
What are you after? 

Man 

To stand first in my profession . . . but I never will 
— with you ! 

Woman 

[Bitterly.l Why didn't we die when we loved each 
other? . . . 

Man 

If you would only be satisfied with the possible . . . 
Haven't we a great deal ? 

Woman 
I want all . , . [J child's poignant cry rises.'\ 

Man 
What's that? 

201 



CREATION 

Woman 

[Leapinff up in alarm.'\ Oh, the baby! [Callinff.l 
Boy! boy! 

Man 

Good heavens! If anything's happened to him . . . 
[The cry rises.^ Where is he? 

Woman 
Listen ! [He rushes to her and seizes herJ] 

Man 
He's in the room somewhere . . . 

Woman 
Behind the curtain . . . 

[They rush to the curtains, part them . . . The 
little boy stands there at the window . . . 
Moonlight streams in . . .] 

Woman 
[Seizing him up.} Darling! What is it? 

Boy 

[With a wild cry.} I want the moon . . . 
202 



CREATION 

Woman 

But, Sweetheart, no one can have the moon. . . It's 
up in the sky. See, my fingers only reach to the 
window . . . 

Boy 

\_More wildly.^ I want the moon . . . 

Woman 

All right. You shall have it. So. So . . . 
IQuiets him; speaks softly to Man.] Get him an 
orange . . . 

Man 

{^Looking at her.'] We all want the moon, and 
get . . . 

{They smile sadly at each other . . . He starts out.] 
[Darkness.] 



\_A little sunny garden . . . The baby, now become 
a youth, sitting with his mother. They are side by 
side on a stone bench. She is holding his hand.] 

Woman 
Stay here with me, son. 

203 



CREATION 

Youth 
No, I can't. 

Woman 

\^Sighing.'\ Why are you so restless ? 

Youth 

I don't know. Something over the wall: some- 
thing out there. 

Woman 
Where? 

Youth 
In the great world . . . 

Woman 
Don't go! You will suffer . . . 

Youth 
Fm not afraid . . . 

Woman 

But you don't know the bitterness of life, the dis- 
illusionment and disappointment. I only want to save 
you from what I suffered . . . 

Youth 
But I just want something to happen . . . 
204 



CREATION 

Woman 
Something will. You will die . . . 

Youth 
I must die anyway . . . 

Woman 

But you're so eager. You're just the kind that will 
be destroyed. Haven't I given you everything? 

Youth 
But I want ... I don't know what I want . . . 

Woman 

And you have been so safe here ... I have taken 
such good care of you ... I let you grow up as if you 
were in a garden . . . the garden of my love ... Is 
that your repayment for my sacrifices? You'll leave 
me? 

Youth 
It's like dying, sweet Mother. But — I can't help it. 

Woman 

{^Bitterly J\ Then why have I taken such trouble 
. . . just to lose you! It isn't worth while being a 
mother. 

205 



CREATION 



Youth 

But my father ... didn't my father have to leave 
his mother? 

Woman 

[Searchingily.] I know now. You are in love . . . 

Youth 
[Sharply.] No . . . 

Woman 
Some woman has tempted you . . . 

Youth 



I hate women 
All women? 



Woman 



Youth 



All except you . . . [She turns from him ... Si- 
lence.] Mother! 



What is it? 



Woman 



Youth 



Don't hold me back. Let me go . . . 
206 



CREATIO}^ 

Woman 
What draws you forth? 

Youth 
Oh, I don't know. It's . . . it's . . . [^Suddenly.'\ 
It's like Jason, looking for a Treasure. 

Woman 
A Treasure ? What Treasure ? 

Youth 
[Breakinff from her.] I can't stand this any 
longer . . . [Starts toward rear.] 

Woman 
[Beseeching.] Boy! boy! 

Youth 

Good-bye! I must go! [Rushes out . . .] 
[Darkness.] 



[A comfortable study. Professor in armchair, with 
liqueur glass in his hand . . . Youth opposite him.] 

Professor 
You won't have a drop of this Benedictine ? 
207 



CREATION 

Youth 
[Shyly.'] No, thanks. I don't drink . . . 

Professor 

At my age the fires begin to wane. I have to pour 
in fuel. But you — [Smiling.] You are all 
flame . . . 

Youth 

Professor, I don't know why I'm so restless and 
unhappy . . . 

Professor 
Really unhappy ? 

Youth 
I don't know what I want . . . 

Professor 
Perhaps you are ... in love? 

Youth 
No. I haven't any use for women . . . 

Professor 
[Smiling.] Why not? 

Youth 
They're too silly. 

208 



CREATION 

Professor 
All of them ? 

Youth 
Except my mother ... 

Professor 
Ah! And she? 

Youth 
There's no one like her in the world . . . 

Professor 
Exactly . . . She doesn't exist in reality . . . 

Youth 
What do you mean? 

Professor 

A child cannot know the mother. He comes to her, 
a baby, and she is earth, and sky, and God to him . . . 
He never recovers from that dream of her. She is 
never a woman to him : but merely an ideal. 

Youth 

But you don't know my mother. 
209 



CREATION 

Professor 

And so you seek for this ideal in other women . . . 
and never find it. They are not your mother . . . 
\_The Youth is silent.^ Love, though, may find a 
vray! [Silence.] 

Youth 

No, I don't vrant love ... 

Professor 

[Smilitiff.] " Man delights me not, nor woman 
neither." 

Youth 

[Hurt.] Why do you quote Hamlet? 

Professor 
Why do you act Hamlet? 

Youth 
[Melancholy.'] But I am a sort of Hamlet . . . 

Professor 
All high-minded youth is . . . You don't know what 
you want, and so you have — nothing. 

Youth 
[Blurting out.] But I do know, in a way . . . 
2IO 



CREATION 

Professor 
Oh, you do? What is it? 

Youth 
I don't like to tell. 

Professor 
[Sippinff the Benedictine.} You can tell me. 

Youth 
Then it's to make the debating team. 

Professor 
You have your heart set on that? 

Youth 
My heart and soul. If I could win that — 

Professor 
What then ? 

Youth 
Oh, I'd never be unhappy again . . . 

Professor 
You are sure ? 

211 



CREATION 

Youth 

Think of it! Out of all the students who tried! 
Then my way would be clear before me . . . 

Professor 
To do what? 

Youth 

To be a great public speaker ... a leader of the 
people . . . 

Professor 
You're sure ? 

Youth 
Yes . . . 

Professor 

[^Smiling.^ Well, you have won it . . . 

Youth 
{Amazed.'] I ? 

Professor 
Yes . . . you . . . 

Youth 

[Bursting out.'] I've won it . . . oh, when my 
mother hears this . . . [He is silent; radiant.] 
212 



CREATION 

Professor 

It is fine, isn't it? And I know you are equal to 
it . . . 

Youth 
Equal to what? 

Professor 
The responsibility . . . 

Youth 

The responsibility? 

Professor 

Surely you've thought of that. The need now to 
win for the University — to show in yourself our very 
best . . . 

Youth 

[^Hesitating. ^ Yes . . . yes . . . [Silence.'\ T 
hadn't thought of that. [Doubtfully.] Do you think 
I am the man to do it ? 

Professor 

Do you? [Silence. The Youth is downcast.'] 
Well, what is it? 

Youth 
I don't know. 

213 



CREATION 

Professor 

{^Smiling.'] Then it isn't making the team that ful- 
fils all life for you? 

Youth 

No. What shall I do ? What shall I do ? 

Professor 

[Sipping at his glass.} There will always be plenty 
to do. 

Youth 

[Radiant again.} But I've won it ... I have won 
it . . . 

[Darkness.} 



[Balcony . . . garden . . . Moonlight . . . Enter 
Youth . . .] 

Youth 

She must come . . . 

[Throws dirt up on window . , , A girl comes 

out on balcony. 
She leans over . . .] 

214 



CREATION 

Girl 
Who is it? 

Youth 
It's I . . . 

Girl 

Go away then . . . 

Youth 

I can't. I lay awake until I couldn't bear it any 
longer. Then I stole here . . . 

Girl 
\_Sighing.'\ The grass must be wet . . . 

Youth 

It is asleep around my feet . . . Loosen your 
hair . . . 

Girl 

I was just brushing it when you came. 

Youth 
So late to get back . . . And I not with youS . . 

Girl 

Please go home. It's too late . . . 
215 



CREATION 

Youth 
Please loosen your hair . . . 
[Silence . . . 

She releases her hair . . . leans . . . it falls 
low . . .] 

Girl 

Now I am hidden . . . 

Youth 
The moon turns you to Juliet . . . 

Girl 
Then you are Romeo . . . 

Youth 

No. Something wilder. It goes back further . . . 
Fire of the sun . . . 

Girl 
Sun on the desert . . . 

Youth 
Arabia . . . 

Girl 

Oh, please go from me now . . . or . . . 
216 



CREATION 

Youth 
Or what? 

Girl 
I shall come to you ... 

Youth 
Come: before I climb up . . . 

Girl 
No. Go . . . Listen ... 
\_A wind sounds.^ 

Youth 

It is near dawn ... A wind from the sea is rising, 
and the grasses whisper . . . What was that ? 

Girl 

A bobolink opening his door, I guess. He is looking 
at the weather. 

Youth 
Hark ! Apples falling in the orchard ! 

Girl 
What else do you hear now? 
217 



CREATION 

Youth 

Earth is glad . , . She is glad because of us. She 
is lifting us up for each other. Can't you taste it? 

Girl 
Taste what? 

Youth 

The Earth ... in this dim light . . . these smells 
of ground and foliage . . . these shadows . . . this 
beauty . . . rising through us, crying out for each 
other . . . 

Girl 

\_Sighing.'] Don't . . . 

Youth 

And you . . . why that gleam along your bare 
white arm? And the shadow of hair over your face 
when you move ? And the heave of your breast ? You 
are hiding your eyes from me . . . 

Girl 
[^Faltering.'\ Hidden with tears . . . 

Youth 
Then come, come . . . Do not delay. We shall so 
soon be dead . . . 

2i8 









Girl 


I cannot . 


• • 




Youth 


You must 






Girl 


Oh, do you 


love 


me? 





Youth 

Love you? Longing . . . my whole life is longing 
... it is a fire burning toward you ... it is as if my 
spirit darted arrows of flame upon you . . . For you 
I have longed since I was born . . . 

Girl 
Ah, you say that now . . . 

Youth 

I say it forever . . . This is the reason I came into 
the world ... to seek till I found you ... to grope 
till I was blinded by your face . . . 

Girl 

Would we could die then now! 

Youth 

Live now! Taste this thing, this Life, this Earth- 
219 



CREATION 

Life, this burning, miraculous fluid: taste it while yet 
it comes to our lips ... It is the wine of which we 
can never get enough . . . Come, before the light casts 
away night, and the burnt-out stars are dropped in the 
debris of the sky . . . Come, while darkness still hides 
us, still leaves us alone with each other . . . Here, in 
my arms . . . 

Girl 

I can resist no longer . . . 

\^She disappears, emerges below . . . He goes to- 
ward her . . .] 

Youth 
You are deathly pale. 

Girl 
Beloved ! 

[They rush into each other's arms.^ 

Youth 

My adored one! I have found the Treasure! 

[They kiss . . . 
A pause . . .] 

Youth 

[Whispering.] Oh, my beloved ... we shall have 
220 



CREATION 

each other forever . . . [J short pause.'\ Do you 
doubt it? 

Girl 
But won't it interfere with the work ? 

Youth 
What work? 

Girl 
As a leader ... a leader of the people ? 

Youth 

Oh, that! Do you think I was really after that? 
No, it's you. And winning a place in the world for 
you. 

Girl 

[Weeping. "l This is real love then! This is real 
love! . . . 

[They embrace tenderly.'] 

[Darkness.] 



[A pleasant bedroom; sunlight streaming . . . The 
girl, now a woman, in bed . . . Doctor, Nurse, 
new-born babe.] 

221 



CREATION 

Doctor 
[Drying his hands. ^ Well, that's over . . . 

Nurse 
[Fussing with baby.l She suffered pretty badly . . . 

Doctor 

[Sighing. '[ Yes. I suppose ever since life started 
it suffered like this to give birth to Life. Birth is pain. 

Nurse 
But how glad she'll be. Is she coming to? 

Doctor 
I think so. Hush ! 

Woman 
Ah! 

Doctor 
Yes, yes . . . 

Woman 
Where am I ? 

Doctor 
That's right. So. Everything is over . . . 

Woman 
Over? Am I dead? 

222 



CREATION 

Doctor 
You have come through splendidly . . 

Woman 
Come through? But I ... I went down into 
utter darkness ... it was not to be endured . . < 

Doctor 
It was hard — but it's over . . . 

Woman 
{Realising^] Oh . . . but . . . the baby! 

Doctor 
It's a fine baby . . . 

Woman 
.Where is it? I can't see it . . . 

Doctor 
You shall see it . . . 

Woman 
Show me my baby . . . 

{He picks it upj and brings it to her."] 
Woman 
I can't see. I can't even lift my head. How 
strange ! 

223 



CREATION 

Doctor 
There, I'll lay it on the pillow . . . 

[^Places it beside her.} *** 

Woman 

[^Turning toward it.'\ Ah! ah! Oh, look! it 
moves! it's opening its mouth! I can't believe it! Is 
it real? 

Doctor 
[Lauffhing softly.] Real enough . . . 

Woman 

[In awe.} But w^hat is it? [Hesitatingly.] Is it 
a girl? 

Doctor 

It's a boy . . . 

Woman 

Ah! My little one! my son! Let me touch it 
. . . [Touches it.] Oh, darling! Now I know why 
I suffered so. For you. And now I know why I 
love you so . . . 

[Enter Youth, now a man. Goes to bedside.] 
224 



CREATION 

Man 
Dearest ! 

Woman 

Ah, look ... a boy . . . 

Man 

So ... a boy ... a son . . . {^Stifling a sobJ] 
At last ... and there he is . . . real, living . . . 
my wife . . . \^Stoops and kisses her.l Little . . . 
mother . . . 

Woman 

[Coilinff his neck with her arms-l Oh, my hus- 
band . . . 

Man 
Our child . . . May I take him up? 

Woman 



Be very careful 



Man 



So. So. [Lifts the baby tenderly.] What a 
miracle! Alive ... it looks around — it opens its 
mouth. [As if to himself. 1 At last . . . Now I have 
found the something beyond myself : the something we 
have created : the Treasure. 
225 



CREATION 

Woman 
Yes — our Treasure . . . 

[^DarknessJ] 



[TheUj a parlour with large French windows in back. 
The Man and a Wise Woman, older than heJ] 

Wise Woman 
Why isn't your wife here? 

Man 
\_IrritablyJ\ She is busy with the children . . . 

Wise Woman 

But in this hour — the hour of your triumph, your 
fame . . . 

Man 

It isn't her hour. I have gone about my work in 
spite of her. She was jealous of it . . . 

Wise Woman 

Tried to spoil it? 

226 



CREATION 

Man 

Not deliberately — but always calling me off — al- 
ways reminding me I am her husband and her chil- 
dren's father. 

Wise Woman 
Doesn't that mean anything to you? 

Man 

It means a great deal — but not enough. I thought 
to have children would ease my longing. It didn't. 
I'm driven on: I'm restless: I want to conquer heaven 
knows what ... I want to shine before the 
world ... 

Wise Woman 
And that will satisfy you? 

Man 
It must . . . 

Wise Woman 

Will there be nothing left to long for? 

Man 

Not as I used to long ... I will have my fulfil- 
ment . . . 

227 



CREATION 

Wise Woman 
[Smilinff.] You are still young . . . 

Man 

You always speak mysteriously. Why don't you 
tell me plainly ? 

Wise Woman 
When you are ready, you will know . . . 

Man 
But when is that? 

Wise Woman 
When you have grown to that level. 

Man 
What level? 

Wise Woman 
Wait, and see! 

[^ great shouting outside growing louder and 
louder.~\ 

Man 

\^Drunk.'\ Hear it! They come! This is my 
hour! They acclaim me! I am the hero! I shine 
forth! 

{^Goes to windows, flings them open . . . ] 

[Shouts: "Hurrah! Hurrah!"] 

228 



CREATION 

Man 

Thanks, friends, thanks! 

[Bows, closes the windows: shouts die 

Wise Woman 
Well, have you found the Treasure? 

Man 
Do you doubt it? 

Wise Woman 
Do you ? 

Man 

{^Stoutly. '\ I have found it! 

Wise Woman 
\_Smiling.~\ Then may joy attend you . 
\_Darkness.^ 



[^Office . . . Man at his desk. He is somewhat 
older. A youth enters.^ 

Man 

You know why I sent for you? 
229 



CREATION 

Youth 
Why, Father? 

Man 
I had a telegram from your mother . . . 

Youth 
{Shaken.'\ Nothing is the matter with her? 

Man 
She is ill. 

Youth 
[Friffhtened.l Is it serious ? 

Man 
It is dangerous . . . 

Youth 

What is it? 

Man 
Pneumonia . . . 

ISilence. Youth slowly seats himself . . . ] 

Youth 

I'm — I'm dreadfully sorry. 
230 



CREATION 

Man 

Son, we must take the five o'clock train together. 
Even then we may be too late . . . Get your things 
together . . . 

Youth 

\_A gitatedJ] I'm sorry, father . . . 

Man 
Sorry? What? 

Youth 
I can't go with you . . . 

Man 
Can't go with me, when your mother is dying? 

Youth 
No. I can't go. 

Man 
Do you know what you are saying? 

Youth 
I'm sorry . . . 

Man 

[^Bursting out.'] Sorry! Don't let me hear that 
again ! Sorry ! You are a sorry son ! You have been 
231 



CREATION 

the bitterest disappointment of my life! I looked to 
you to carry on my work . . . 

Youth 
[^Challenging.^ I have my own work . . . 

Man 

Your own paltry indolence! Work? Child's play! 
You, the son of a worker! 

Youth 
It is what I live for . . . 

Man 
Let me hear no more of it. Go your way . . . 
[Youth rises.'[ 

Youth 
I shall go my way . . , 

Man 

But with never a bit of help from me . . . To have 
brought you up all these years, for this! And now, in 
this hour, to refuse to go with me! 

Youth 
I can't leave her . . . 

232 



CREATION 

Man 
Her? Leave whom ? 

Youth 
Her . . . 

Man 

Her before your mother? What ails her? . . . 

Youth 

She is ill, too . . . 

Man 
And you put her before your mother ! 

Youth 
I love her . . . You left your mother . . . 

Man 

Yes, whtn I was rash and young! But out of my 
experience I tell you what you must know . . . 

Youth 

\_Harshly.^ I'll have my own experience, if you 
please. 

Man 

Have it then. We are done with each other . . . 
233 



CREATION 

Youth 
I am sorry ... 

Man 
Sorry? Go at once! 

[Youth goes out reluctantly . . . Man stands 
alone . . . Enter his Secretary.] 

Secretary 
A telegram . . . 

Man 
Read it to me . . . 

[Secretary opens it and starts to readJ] 

Secretary 
"Your wife—" [Stops short. 1 Oh! 

Man 
[Staggering, holding to the desk.'\ Read on! 

Secretary 

[F altering. '\ " Your wife passed away without pain 
at two this afternoon." 

Man 
You may go. 

[Secretary goes out, closing the door.^ 
234 



CREATION 

Man 

[With a groaning cry.'\ Oh! So life breaks to 
pieces! All! All! . . . What is it for? Why was 
I born? 

[Darkness.^ 



\RoQm in Man's House. Large windows in rear. 
Enter Man and Reporter.] 

Man 
But this is impossible. 

Reporter 
You refuse to change your position? 

Man 
Am I right, or wrong? 

Reporter 

Of course, between ourselves, you are right. Your 
investigations have proved beyond doubt that these 
men are guilty. But in the present state of popular 
feeling — 

Man 
Fomented by your damnable newspapers — 
235 



CREATION 

Reporter 
We have to give the people what they want. 

Man 
Never what they need ? 

Reporter 
We live on their patronage. 

Man 
Then you do not serve the public . . . 

Reporter 
Hm. There are ways and ways of serving . . . 

Man 

Then go to your paper, and print the worst. I 
know what service I have rendered, and I know what 
motives drove me. I know that I have put my time 
and my gifts in the hands of the people. I have tried 
to do my share . . . And in the end the people will 
stand with me . . . 

Reporter 
Then you will not withdraw? 

Man 
An unqualified refusal . . . 
236 



CREATION 

Reporter 

You had best not mislead yourself about the people. 
There is a mass meeting not three blocks away. I 
shouldn't be surprised if you received a visit this 
evening . . . 

Man 

That, too? 

Reporter 

You see, the people don't want to be served. They 
want to be victimized. They want to be fooled. 

Man 

If I believed that, my last remaining shred of faith 
would be lost . . . 

Reporter 

Perhaps you will understand then why we news- 
papers make necessary compromises with the truth . . . 

Man 

I have nothing more to say . . . [Sounds in dis- 
tance.} What is that? 

Reporter 

[Jlert.] As I said. Come quickly: we will get 
out at the back. 

237 



CREATION 

Man 
Do you mean to say that a mob is coming? 

Reporter 

Listen! {^Ominous noise of shouting, and trampling 
of feet.] There is no mercy in that beast. 

Man 

[Aghast.] So this is the end of my dream! That, 
too! 

Reporter 
Come, while there is time [Starts for door.] 

Man 

If this is true, I am done. I shake the dust of this 
country from my feet. I become a wanderer . . . 

[An overwhelming noise of people outside.] 

Reporter 

Come ! There is yet a moment ! 

[Shouts: "Lynch him! Kill him!"] 

Man 
[Shaking his fist.] We are foes from henceforth ! 
[A stone crashes through the window. Wild 
shouts.] 

238 



CREATION 

Reporter 
Are you coming ? 

Man 

Yes . . . [^Pauses, cries out.'\ Life is a fraud. 
There is no god in heaven or in man. It's a vile 
trick some devil has played on us . . . From 
now on I seek peace . . . Peace . . . [Noise. He 
leaves . . . ] 

[Darkness.^ 



{_A small room, with high dormer windows in back. 
Table: papers: books . . . Man pacing restlessly 
up and down. His Friend, seated.^ 

Friend 
So you have stopped writing . . . 

Man 
{Bitterly.'] It was a fad. Just like art-collect- 
ing .. . 

Friend 
What a pity! 

Man 
A pity ? Did you care for my work ? 
239 



CREATION 

Friend 

Well — uh — it was a bit pessimistic — a bit sui- 
cidal . . . 

Man 

[Pausing, and looking at him.^ It was the truth. 
What sort of a stomach has this generation anyway? 
[Paces on, restlessly.] Yet what is true? What is 
false ? I have gorged myself on books : stuffed on art : 
talked with specialists . . . the doctors disagree . . . 
[Paces restlessly; more bitterly.] But it is not that. 
Life has lost its flavour . . . 

Friend 
You mean you have no interests ? 

Man 

Nothing stirs me any more. Knowledge is vain, 
love dead, and nature a far off spectacle . . . 

Friend 
Perhaps you need a rest . . . 

Man 

Good God, rest? Hark! [They are silent.'] 
Where is there more peace on earth than here? Yet 
to-morrow I leave . . . 

240 



CREATION 

Friend 
Where shall you go? 

Man 

Anywhere. Beyond. But I shall find nothing. 
Wherever I go, I shall stumble again on myself: on 
this restless caged animal within me . . . and this 
shall drive me further. 



Friend 
But once I remember you used to find strength In 



Man 

[Goinff to the window j flinging it open.'^ Look. 
There it is. And I know it is beautiful. I know the 
lake films an inverted sky, and that purple shadows 
are on the mountains. I know that the panorama of 
heaven is majestic and solemn. I see, I know . . . but 
I do not feel. I do not realise this world, as once I 
did. Its meaning has fled. 

Friend 
Perhaps its meaning has changed for you. 

Man 
Changed for the worse. I know that bright star 
241 



CREATION 

there is a huge skyful of flame; a rolling colossus, and 
that the ray of light that strikes from it, and is caught 
by my eye, has darted a hundred years to reach me; 
yes, the star I see is the star of a hundred years ago, 
and if to-night it were destroyed, for a hundred years 
more man would see it ... So huge is space, so small 
is man . . . This I know; but I do not care. What 
of it? Make a vat of darkness, and drop a pinch of 
dust in it . . . and the dust is you and I . . . What 
of it? 

Friend 
But we see and know all this, we creatures . . . 

Man 
Yes, by a crooked trick, we have this awakening 
. . . But the stiff yellow bodies on the dissecting tables 
of the morgue, lie freezing on the marble, and refute 
by their pitiable nakedness, the boasting cries of religion 
and art . . . Man whistles to keep his courage up, and 
he calls his whistling, revelation . . . 

Friend 
[Roused.^ If Life is this then, why not die? 
Why not get out of it ? 

Man 
\_Bitterly.'] That is it. I cannot. I am driven to 
242 



CREATION 

seek. I long. I feel as if I were insulated from life, 
and could not break through. What is the answer? 
How find the Treasure ? 

Friend 
\_Sadly.'\ I do not know. 

Man 
Ah, that is the answer : we do not know. 
[Darkness.^ 



[A mountain top . . . From one side enters Wise 
Woman, from the other, the Man. He is much 
older . . . ] 

Wise Woman 
We meet again. 

Man 
[Sadly.] After many years . . . 

Wise Woman 
Well, friend, have you found it? 

Man 
Found what? 

243 



CREATION 

Wise Woman 
The Treasure . . . 

Man 

[^Angrily.'\ There is no Treasure. Life is a 
fraud . . . 

Wise Woman 
But you are still seeking? 

Man 
Seeking? ... I am restless . . . 

Wise Woman 
And full of longing? 

Man 

I am driven across the face of the earth. I snatch 
bubbles. They burst on my fingers. 

Wise Woman 
Why do you snatch them ? 

Man 

My heart is starved: it would eat. It is fire: it 
would consume. 



CREATION 

Wise Woman 
And you have suffered much ? 

Mak 

I have suffered damnation. I have been blown 
hither and thither in the winds of Hell . . . 

Wise Woman 
Has the world turned against you? 

Man 
Yes. I told them the truth . . . 

Wise Woman 
And what is that truth? 

Man 
That life is a fraud, and man is to be pitied. 

Wise Woman 
Man is to be pitied ? No ! Man is to be glorified ! 

Man 
He seeks, and finds not. 

Wise Woman 
Then he seeks wrongly. 

245 



CREATION 

Man 

I sought love: I sought children: I sought work 
and fame ... I sought even to serve mankind . . . 
I sought knowledge and wisdom . . . All has failed 
me . . . 

Wise Woman 

wAnd nothing remains? 

Man 

My wife is dead: my children have left me: the 
world spurns my work . . . 

Wise Woman 
One thing remains. 

Man 
And that is? 

Wise Woman 
Yourself. 

Man 
Myself ? I wish I were dead . . . 

Wise Woman 
You are dead. 

Man ■ 
It is true . . . 

246 



CREATION 

Wise Woman 

Dead are they who seek for the Treasure in the 
world: living are they who seek for the Treasure in 
themselves . . . Only there may you create beyond 
yourself . . . 

Man 
I have travelled the world — 

Wise Woman 

You have run from the Treasure: you have seized 
ever the outside. Now pause and go inside. 

Man 

Ah, yes, at least there, comfort: sweet illusions: es- 
cape from the world. There I am at home, in the 
house of my memories. 

Wise Woman 
You do not understand me . . . 

Man 

My Mother: I see her in the Garden. I see the 
Balcony where I whispered of love. I see my little 
new-born son . . . 

247 



CREATION 

Wise Woman 

\^Sharply.'\ Yes, you sink back to the past and em- 
brace . . . ghosts . . . 

Man 
The dead . . . 

Wise Woman 
The Mothers . . . 

Man 
What else may I do then, going into myself? 

Wise Woman 

Renounce the Mothers! Renounce your dead 
selves . . . 

Man 

Ah, but what shall I have then ? 

Wise Woman 

Your living self. Go deeper than memory. Go 
dovv^n, down into the source of yourself: down into 
Life, into the All-Mother. Dive into those maternal 
waters and arise reborn. 

Man 
The All-Mother? 

248 



CREATION 

Wise Woman 

The stars, the night and the Earth, this woven tex- 
ture, knotted with suns and planets: this is the womb 
of the All-Mother . . . and we the seed in her womb 
. . . Save that you be born again of her, you shall 
surely perish . . . 

Man 
[PFarilyl You mean . . . God? 

Wise Woman 
I mean, Life . . . 

Man 

But I do not accept your belief. This All-Mother 
is an image you have created . . . 

Wise Woman 

Even so. Man has risen through images . . . He 
was raised through thinking on Zeus, he was lifted by 
the Cross . . . 

Man 

Then he was lifted by lies ... 

Wise Woman 

But he was lifted . . . 

249 



To what? 



Into Life . . . 



CREATION 

Man 

Wise Woman 



Man 
It means nothing to me . . . 

Wise Woman 

The meaning lies in the action: the answer is in the 
effort. Are you really seeking? Will you try it? 

Man 
What is the way ? 

Wise Woman 

The way within? The way into the All-Mother? 
The way into self? 

Man 
Yes . . . 

Wise Woman 

A way of peril. Many going there, sinking out of 

reality, and far from the shining world, remain, and 

return never. They are sealed in themselves; they 

stalk in a vision-haunted Hades, among stars of illu- 

250 



CREATION 

sion, in the twilight of a phantom-moon and a ghost- 
sun. They are the insane . . . 

Man 
[Shudderinff.^ It is too perilous . . . 

Wise Woman 

More perilous not to go. You are dead now. Bury 
yourself again in the womb of the All-Mother, and 
down there, struggle. Jacob wrestled with the angel, 
Christ with Satan. Go you, too, and wrestle in your 
own depths. Wrench open the womb again; suffer 
the agony and blood of birth-throes. Then you shall 
be new-born. Young. Strong. Heroic . . . 

Man 
[Shakinff his head.^ It is too late . . . 

Wise Woman 
Try it, friend . . . 

[Darkness.^ 



[A little Study. Late at Night. The Man in an 
armchair, beside the desk. Brooding.^ 
251 



CREATION 

Man 

I am dead. I am dead . . . [Pause. ^ She said — 
into yourself . . . but again and again I have gone 
into myself . . . lost . . . with old faces, beloved 
faces . . . shadovi^-plays, illusions . . . and struggled 
there, as now I struggle, as now I sink . . . 

[He broods, head on hand . . . Silence. The 
scene changes; a strange watery place: full of 
phantom shapes; waving glimpses of hands, 
faces, play of lights . . . a sort of Chaos . . . 
The Man sinking slowly from the top through 
toward the bottom . . . ] 

Man 

[Muffled voice.'\ Down . . . down . . . [Mur- 
murs of many voices.'\ Deeper and deeper into myself 
. . . [Pauses midway down.] The world is gone . . . 
the streets have vanished . . . the faces of the living 
are no more . . . [Several Phantoms float toward 
him.'] Who are you ? 

First Phantom 
I am yourself in the day of your triumph . . . 

Man 
Bring me to life . . . 

252 



CREATION 

First Phantom 

No . . . 

Man 
Help me ... I sink . . . 

Second Phantom 
{On level below.^ Remember me? 

Man 
I think I do . . . 

Second Phantom 
I am yourself that made love in the garden. 

Man 
Oh, resurrect me . . . 

Second Phantom 
[Is silent.] 

Man 
Sinking . . . sinking . . . 

Third Phantom 

[On level below, touching his arm.] I am yourself 
that was a child in your Mother's arms . . . 
253 



GREAT lOI^ 

Man 

Ah, dear one, you I could brood upon. Yes, I am 
you. I am a child again. Where is my Mother ? 

Third Phantom 
Hush, she comes! 

[Phantom Mother approaches.'] 

Mother 
Son . . . 

Man 
Mother . . . 

Mother 

Find peace here. I am heaven. I am the begin- 
ning of life and the end. All that goes between is dirt, 
despair, sweat. In my arms was Paradise. And it 
shall be so again . . . 

Man 

The longing of humanity is mine . . . the dream 
of heaven . . . the dream of finding the mother 
again . . . 

Mother 
I hold you forever . . . 

254 



CREATION 

Man 
Wake me . . . wake the dead. 

Mother 

Why wake ... to pain, incessant struggle, the life 
of Earth? Sleep in yourself, in me, sweet son . . . 

Man 

But I am sinking . . . beyond memory . . . deeper 
. . . deeper . . . {He sinks further. A great shape 
approaches.^ August presence, your name? 

Phantom 
Earth . . . 

Man 
What is this? 

{A furious noise, flames leap, demons rush to and 
fro.-] 

Demons 
We are your deeper self! The buried madness, the 
red terror, the breath of primal things . . . We rend; 
we scald ! we scorch ! 

[They rush toward him."] 

Man 
[Groaning.] Deeper! deeper! 
255 



CREATION 

[^The scene becomes as at the beginning of the play 
. . . Chaos . . . The man has reached the bot- 
tom,^ 

Man 
All-Mother ... 

A Voice 

{^Far echoing, thin, immaterial.^ Sleep . . . sleep 
. . sleep ... 

Another 
Longing . . . 

Another 
Life is longing . . . 

Chorus 
I am a heaven of thirst, I am a sky of hunger . . . 

Counter-Chorus 
Abide, abide in Darkness . . . 

Man 
Here is my rest. Here is my abiding-place . . . 

Chorus 

Up to the light! Rise . . . 
256 



CREATION 

Counter-Chorus 

Remain, child . . . 

I am the Mother . . . 

She giveth her beloved, sleep . . . 

Chorus 
Rise from death! Be born! 

Man 

Jacob wrestled with the angel, Christ with 
Satan ... 

\^A shape approaches.'^ 

Shape 
I hold you here . . . 

Man 

Take ofiE your arms . . . take away your drowsy 
sense-stealing breath . . . ah, poppies, the lotus, the 
root of dream and vision I bite on . . . All is illusion : 
all is phantasy . . . 

Chorus 
Cast him off. Arise. Be born again . . . 

Shape 
I lull ... I lull . . . 

257 



CREATION 

Man 

No, but I shall struggle with you though I be blasted 
forever ! Off, demon, off ! 

[_They wrestle.^ 

Chorus 

[/« triumphant chant.'\ 

Creation thunders gloriously and the lips of life are 

opened . . . 
The glory of the heavens shall be made manifest . . . 
The skies shall declare themselves in flame, 
And darkness shall be advertised in fires. 

[Thunder, lightning. '\ 

{Darkness . . . ] 

Man 

[Crying out.l Naked . . . little . . . what ter- 
ror! what loneliness! Is there no help in the world? 
No one to turn to? I am dying. [With a wild cry.'] 
Mother! 

[A cleaving of light from the top down . . . the 
Man swirls upward to the surface . . . ] 

[Darkness; then light. He is at his desk again, 
in the study . . . He rises amazed.] 
258 



CREATION 

Man 

Was it death — or birth? Oh, light as air, quick 
as joy . . . [Lauffhs softly.] Not my mother — no, 
I slew my own childish self. I lost my life, and I 
have found — what? [Liftinff a face of awe.'\ Is it 
thou, O Life, with the music of heaven enfolding me, 
is it thou, O Inscrutable? Am I reborn of thee, 
mighty Mother? Was it this that the prophets knew 
and the psalmist sang? [fVith a glad cry.~\ To 
work! to work! 

{Darkness^ 



\R.oom . . . Womarij in deep chair, reclining against 

pillowSj one foot bandaged.] 
{Noise outside.] 

Young Voices 
Good-bye ! Good-bye ! 

Voice of the Man 
{^Joyously.] Good-bye, boys! 
{Enter the Man.] 

Man 

I could hardly shake them off . . . 
259 



CREATION 

Woman 
What was it to-day? 

Man 
Oh, it was supposed to be protozoa . . . 

Woman 
But actually ? 

Man 
I taught them about, well — life. 

Woman 
What about life? 

Man 
The spending of it, as Nature does ... 

Woman 

The students love you, dear: you give them so 
much . . . 

Man 

Give? I can't help giving! Is it any credit to the 
sun that he sheds light and heat? . . . and since that 
wonderful time . . . that time I learned to slay self 
in order to win self, there is no joy but giving . . . 
260 



CREATION 

Woman 

But it seems to me that you give equally to every- 
thing — whether it's reading the new^s, writing a book, 
or shaping a dull lad into a student . . . 

Man 

It's true . . . life flows from me, through me . . . 

\_He comes to her; he leans and speaks tenderly, 
smoothing her cheek.} 

Darling, how are you ? 





Woman 


So, so. 






Man 


Still pain? 






Woman 


A little! 






Man 


A bad accident that 


^ ^ 



Woman 

Ugh ! when I think of it — the wheel running over 
my foot — the seeing red — the lightning brand of 
pain — the swooning — 

261 



CREATION 

Man 
Don't think of it . . . 

\^He goes to table and gets basin and rag.^ 

Woman 
You're not going to wash it? 

Man 
Some one must do it, and since the nurse left — 

Woman 
I can do it, dear . . . 

[He kneels and starts to take off the bandage.] 
Please don't. 

Man 
[Going on.l Why? 

Woman 
It's an ugly foot, and now it's ghastly. 

Man 
It shall soon cease to be ugly ... 

Woman 



How? 



262 



1SL 



CREATION 

Man 
I shall make it beautiful . . . 

Woman 
How? 

Man 

By touch of hands , . . 

Woman 
\_Smiling.'\ And that will give it beauty? 

Man 

That which we serve, we lift . . . it's a simple 
matter ... of old they always washed the feet of the 
traveller, and so the stranger became a friend . . . 

Woman 
Ah, yes, but . . . 

Man 

Does a mother ever think her sick dirty child un- 
pleasant ? 

[Bares the foot, and washes iV.] 

Woman 

How can you look at it — so ugly — so — ugh! 
263 



CREATION 

Man 
How? 

\^Kisses iV.] 
I kiss your foot . . . 

Woman 
You love me so much? 

Man 

I am yours: all yours ... I am your servant, be- 
loved . . . 

\^He reaches up and takes her in his arms . . . 
Tumult of wind.] 

Listen ! the autumn w^inds : the Bacchantic revels ! 

Woman 
Life is dying . . . 

Man 
Dying in laughter . . . 

Woman 
But dying . . . 

Man 
So shall v^^e die — with a will — like the year — 
264 



CREATION 

having spent ourselves to the uttermost end . . . Oh, 
my beloved . . . 

[DarknessJ] 



[A small room . . . The Man, now very old, in an 
armchair: his eyes shining, his face lifted . . . The 
Wise Woman, also old, sitting near him . . .] 

Wise Woman 
Well, friend, how are you? 

Man 
[Smilinff.] Near death, I suppose. 

Wise Woman 
And — are you happy ? 

Man 
I am strong. And lonely, lonely since she died . . . 

Wise Woman 
You have found the Treasure? 

Man 

I have found the Treasure ... 
265 



CREATION 

Wise Woman 
You never doubt it? 

Man 

I doubt at times. Clouds come. But they pass 
... It seems to me it took a thousand lifetimes to 
learn one little truth . . . 

Wise Woman 

And it will take a thousand lifetimes to make that 
truth prevail . . . 

Man 
{^Growing a little deliriousJ] 

For what is Man ? 

He is a bit of the sun that has wandered across the 

ages : 
He is flesh on the way to godhood . . . 
He is driven by the longing that filled the night with 

stars . . . 

Wise Woman 
[^Aside.^ My friend is dying . . . 

Man 

New York paving stones! What's under New 
York, I ask you? What's under Earth? What's 
266 



CREATION 

under heaven? Dig deep enough and you will find 
fire, fire, fire! 

Wise Woman 
He is looking into himself. He sees the All- 
Mother ... 

Man 
I go down the winding stairs of my own self. Every 

landing is an age. I go down past Crusader, and 

Roman and Greek, and savage, and beast: down 

to the Earth: down to the Sun: down to 

Chaos . . . 
Opens up then vastness within me, glimpses, tumult 

and madness . . . 
The rolling of primal lava . . . 
Sealed and dynamic, in this tiny body of mine, 
Whipping me on and on . . . 

{^Rises slowly, eyes shining, delirious.^ 
Take me then. Power ! 
Use me, great Mother! 

And on you I turn, and consciously use you also, 
Shape to your driving, 
Divert your currents, 
Build to a Vision ... 

[Raising his hand.'\ 
This then my contract . . . 
267 



CREATION 

To the uncreated I go, 

To the unforeseeable . . . 

Forth still and forth, 

I, the Wanderer, 

I, Man, that was sun-fire, 

Leaving all moorings, 

Cast from all safety, 

Footing it beyond the last span of the bridge into the 
emptiness, 

In a world that is terror and might and ignorant dark- 
ness, 

In a world where a growing light and a growing god- 
liness is Man, and Man alone, 

To a Fate I myself shall Will, 

And a Destiny I myself shall make, 

To a height undreamed of by the Mother, 

To children of my own unbelievable . . . 

\_Staggering, sinking in his chair, trying to riseJ] 

Courage, my heart! 
This is man's life . . . 

To pause, or retreat, is sure and certain death, 
In the peril of advance is the only safety. 
In the ultimate hazard the only security. 
So on: in this life I am living: on in my loneli- 
ness: 
On, striving and toiling: seeing but little ahead: 
268 



CREATION 

On, then, through death as a victory, through annihila- 
tion as a triumph. 

Yea, to break through that smoke to the flame of the 
next life beyond, 

Yea, to burst through wall after wall into the un- 
shaped Future, 

On, ever greater, 

On, ever stronger, 

On to fulfilment! 

[Sinks back as if dead.'\ 

Wise Woman 
[Leaning over him, feeling his heart.^ He lives. 

Man 
[Looking up.] Mother! 

Wise Woman 
What is the Treasure ? 

Man 
My greater Self. 
[Dies.] 

Wise Woman 
He has found the way and the life. 
[Darkness.] 
269 



CREATION 

All-Mother 

\_A chorus singingJ] 

Man arises: man, the flame! 

He seeks the Treasure in himself! 

He seeks to give me greater life ! 

Higher wisdom, wider truth . . . 

He is myself reshaping the Creation: 

He is myself working on myself . . . 

GLORY TO MAN, THE CREATOR ! STRIFE AND TRIUMPH 

ON earth! 

FLAME AND DAWN IN THE HEAVENS ! 



270 



EPILOGUE 

In the beginning was the sun, 
And the sun was Life, 
And the sun became Earth. 

Life is a flame. 

And flame is the longing that creates and consumes. 

And the longing filled the heavens with many fires. 

And on Earth through this longing the flame became 

sea and hill. 
And the hills became flesh. 
And flesh became man. 

Then is man, life; 

Then is man, flame; 

Then is man the longing that consumes and creates. 

Wherefore no waters shall quench us: 
Neither sleep, the rain-waters; nor death, the sea- 
waters . . . 
For who may extinguish the sunf 
271 



CREATION 

Wherefore longing drives us: 

Wherefore the sun in us would shed planets^ even as 

the sun in heaven : 
So we seek each other, to he get children. 
So we turn to ourselves, to beget works. 

We are the fire that becomes mind: 

We are the fire that becomes spirit . . . 

J hand works on the world and shapes it anew, 

A brain gazes on the world, and sees that it is good. 

No peace shall give us rest. 

And no quiet calm us: 

A flame is restless . . . 

We shall find peace then in the blazing forth of our 

fires. 
And in battle, healing ... 

This is man's destiny. 

And this his cycle . . . 

Never to dull the flame of his longing in sloth and 

sweet trances. 
But to be whipped before the driving fire into new 

heights of himself. 

For we are the light of Earth, 
And we shall be the light of the heavens . . . 
272 



CREATION 

We shall put a girdle around the skies. 

We shall harness Orion, and make for our souls new 

Pleiades : 
We are flesh on the v/ay to godhood. 



END 



273 



■'■ '/r&f^,-iJ-r .. ' h^m^mi 





\L 



